Netanyahu Working To Find Countries To 'Absorb' Palestinians Who Want To Flee Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his political party on Monday that he's working to identify countries that are are willing to "absorb" Palestinians who want to leave the territory.
Netanyahu's remarks in front of a group of Likud Party members came in response to a statement from Knesset legislator Shani Danon, who said:
"The world is already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration. The Canadian immigration minister said the things publicly and so did Nikki Haley. We must establish a team of the State of Israel to deal with this issue, and make sure that those who want to leave Gaza to a third country can do so. It needs to be settled. It has strategic importance for the day after the war."
"Our problem is countries that are ready to absorb and we are working on it," replied Netanyahu. The daily national newspaper Israel Hayom was first to report the exchange. Hayom is a conservative paper owned by the family of the late billionaire pro-Israel Republican Party benefactor Sheldon Adelson.
Israeli officials' talk of Palestinians engaging in "voluntary" migration must be scrutinized in light of conditions Israel is imposing on the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip.
Since the Oct. 6 military and terrorist attacks on southern Israel perpetrated by the militant arm of Hamas, the Israeli Defense Forces have been methodically decimating Gaza.
Nearly 21,000 Palestinians have died thus far, with more than 54,000 wounded, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health.
Even those numbers understate the universal misery in Gaza -- out of a population of approximately 2 million, more than 1.7 million are displaced from their homes.
Israel initially ordered the Palestinian population to abandon northern Gaza, including Gaza City, and move south of Wadi Gaza, a seasonal river. On Friday, the IDF declared the next section of Gaza off-limits to Palestinians. The area housed nearly 90,000 people before Oct. 7, plus another 60,000 who'd fled from the north.
The pattern prompted UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons Paula Vaviria Betancur to ask...
"Where will the people of Gaza have left to go tomorrow? As evacuation orders and military operations continue to expand and civilians are subjected to relentless attacks on a daily basis, the only logical conclusion is that Israel's military operation in Gaza aims to deport the majority of the civilian population en masse."
Scenes from northern Gaza pic.twitter.com/DaaO0gKiwB
— FJ (@Natsecjeff) December 27, 2023
Many Palestinians who've obeyed the IDF's orders to move to "safety" have died as bombs are dropped on the supposed safe zones too: A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery suggests that Israel has dropped more than 200 2,000-pound bombs in the area of South Gaza where it told Palestinians to flee. For perspective, the United States used only one such bomb in its entire campaign against ISIS.
The exchange at Monday's Likud meeting was just the latest indication of Israeli government interest in reducing or entirely expelling the Palestinian population of Gaza:
In October, a leaked Israeli intelligence ministry document revealed a proposal to systematically force all Palestinians from Gaza and into tents in the Sinai Peninsula. Some said the leak was used to gauge the Israeli public's appetite for all-out ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
In November, two current members of Israel's legislature took to the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages to declare that Western countries should start taking Gaza refugees.
Also last month, the Israeli intelligence minister wrote an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post pushing for so-called "voluntary resettlement" so the "people of Gaza [can] build new lives in their new host countries."