From Le Figaro with AFP
Published 1 hour ago, updated 50 minutes ago
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. RICCARDO SAVI/Getty Images via AFP
The former British prime minister has denied Israeli television's claims. He wanted to make it clear that, in his opinion, “Gaza residents must be able to stay and live in Gaza.”
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has strongly denied having discussions in Israel about relocating Palestinians from Gaza, Israeli television claimed. According to Israeli media Channel 12, Tony Blair, who left office in 2007 and later served as Middle East envoy responsible for building Palestinian institutions, was in Israel last week. He reportedly met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and War Cabinet member Benny Gantz about a post-war mediation role with Hamas, Channel 12 said.
According to this channel, he could also take on the role of an intermediary with moderate Arab states for a “voluntary resettlement” of Gaza residents. But Tony Blair's foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, called the claims a “lie”. They were published “without contact with Tony Blair or his team”. “No discussion of this nature has taken place,” the organization responded in a statement Monday evening. “Tony Blair wouldn't have such a discussion because the idea is fundamentally wrong. Gazans must be able to stay and live in Gaza.”
Israeli minister wants to “encourage” Palestinians to leave Gaza
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Jewish settlers to return to the Gaza Strip after the war. Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, said Israel should “encourage” the approximately 2.4 million Palestinians in Gaza to leave the territory for other countries. “We will help rehabilitate these refugees in other countries in an appropriate and humane way, in cooperation with the international community and the Arab countries around us,” he added.
Hamas, which is in power in the Gaza Strip, strongly condemned these comments. “It is a war crime that reinforces ongoing criminal aggression unparalleled in modern history,” the Islamist movement affirmed. According to the latest report released by Hamas, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have claimed more than 22,000 lives, mostly women, children and teenagers, since the war began on October 7. They were launched in retaliation for an attack of unprecedented magnitude carried out by commandos of the Islamist movement, which, according to the latest official Israeli data, resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians.
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