The new head of Israel’s National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, convened Israeli officials for a meeting on Tuesday to discuss a potential ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, which Israeli officials call “voluntary emigration,” according to a report from Haaretz.
While Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently declared that the ethnic cleansing plan would be implemented “at the right time,” there have been no countries willing to cooperate with Israel on the forced removal of the Palestinian population of Gaza, and according to sources speaking with Haaretz, that remains to be the case.
The report said that during the meeting, which was attended by IDF and Shin Bet officials, Mossad officials said that there are still no countries willing to take in the Palestinians and that there were no developments regarding the removal of Palestinians from Gaza.
The 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 reads: “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 still hasn’t made progress on removing Palestinians from Gaza, the IDF occupies more than 60% of Gaza and continues to take more territory in violation of the US-backed ceasefire deal. Israel hasn’t faced any consequences from the US for taking the territory or for continuing daily attacks in Gaza, which have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since the truce agreement was signed in October.
