The Israeli government is seeking to revive its push for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and is rebranding the plan in an attempt to gain international support, according to reports from Israeli media.
Citing Israel’s Channel 13, The Times of Israel reported that Israeli security officials have been told to stop calling the plan “voluntary migration” due to global opposition and now refer to it as a “plan for free movement.”
The report cited Israeli officials who expressed optimism that the change in terminology could get countries where Palestinians could potentially go to drop their opposition to cooperating with the plan. One senior Israeli official said that Israel wants as many Palestinians to leave Gaza as possible.
The report came five days after Haaretz reported that the new head of Israel’s National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, convened Israeli officials for a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the potential ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza. During the meeting, Mossad officials said that there are still no countries willing to be complicit in the plan.
The Haaretz report suggested that the meeting and revival of the push to cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population could be related to the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding and the US requests for Israel to de-escalate in Lebanon.
The report said: “A defense official who spoke with Haaretz could not rule out that the revival of this plan is connected to quiet agreements reached recently between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, constituting ‘compensation for painful concessions’ that Washington imposed on Israel as part of its deal with Iran.”
While Israel has failed to find countries to absorb Palestinians, Israel has already cleansed much of Gaza of its Palestinian population, as the IDF occupies more than 60% of Gaza, and besides the Israeli-backed militias and gangs and a small number of civilians who live with them, there are no Palestinians in the IDF-occupied part of Gaza.
