Borrell condemns Israel’s alleged plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza

Brussels – The international community is against the talks that the State of Israel is allegedly conducting with Congo and other countries to probe the possibility of relocating thousands of Palestinians, who are the legitimate inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.

It is the usual “provocative and irresponsible statements” by far-right Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, defined them, that are causing concern. Because Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, reiterated yesterday (Jan. 3) that “encouraging mass emigration from Gaza will allow Israelis living on the border to return home safely.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, added that “more than 70 percent of Israeli public opinion” supports the need to encourage the relocation of Palestinians from the Gaza enclave.

Far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich (Photo by AMIR COHEN / POOL / AFP)

The statements drew immediate criticism: “Forced displacement is strictly forbidden as a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” Borrell commented, adding a laconic “and words count.” The U.S. State Department also branded the statements by the two ministers in Tel Aviv as “inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric.” But Smotrich, rejecting the U.S. ally’s criticism, reportedly insisted that a resettlement policy is necessary because “four minutes from our communities is a hot-bed of hatred and terrorism, where two million people wake up every morning with aspirations to destroy the State of Israel and with a desire to slaughter, rape, and kill Jews wherever they are.”

Moreover — as the Times of Israel reported  — Benjamin Netanyahu himself, during a meeting of his Likud party, reportedly admitted that he is working to facilitate the voluntary migration of Palestinians. “Our problem is only finding those willing to absorb them,” he reportedly confided to his party. But this morning another influential Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, debunked rumors of secret contacts between Netanyahu and the Congo government, as well as other nations, about taking in thousands of migrants from Gaza. A Tel Aviv source reportedly called the appeals by far-right ministers “unfounded illusions” because “we don’t know how to transport people from here to Congo, and no country would agree to take in Gaza residents, not a million or even 5,000.”

A residential area of Gaza, devastated by Israeli bombing (credits: Yahya Hassouna / Afp)

Beyond what the most extremist Israeli right-wing plans under the name of “voluntary resettlement,” it is clear that what is happening in the Gaza Strip leaves numerous doubts about the future Israel envisions for that land. According to the latest bulletins released by Ocha-Opt, the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli Defense Forces have destroyed – at least partially – more than 60 percent of the housing units in the Strip. And made 85 percent of its inhabitants, nearly 2 million internally displaced. people.