Israel’s finance minister said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is proceeding, remarks that came on the same day as Israel completely cut off electricity from the last receiving facility in the obliterated Palestinian enclave.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism party told fellow Knesset lawmakers that ‘this plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination’ with the Trump administration.
Smotrich said that he is working with Cabinet members including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to establish a ‘migration administration’ that will oversee the removal of an indeterminate number of Gaza’s approximately 2.1 million people, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel during the modern Jewish state’s founding in 1948.
While Smotrich insisted that Palestinian removal would be ‘voluntary,’ it is highly questionable whether many Palestinians would leave what remains of their homeland of their own free will, or what kind of incentives it would take to convince them to go.
Last month, Trump—who on Wednesday threatened to kill everyone in Gaza unless Hamas handed over the dozens of remaining Israeli and other hostages it has held for over 500 days—vowed that the U.S. would ‘own’ Gaza.
U.S. developers, the president said, will ‘level’ Gaza and build the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ there after Palestinians—’all of them’—leave. Asked if his plan involved sending U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump replied, ‘If it’s necessary, we’ll do that.’
Forced removal of people by an occupying power is a war crime according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which Israel’s apartheid settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are also illegal.
Smotrich said Sunday that the so-called Trump Plan ‘involves identifying key countries, understanding their interests—both with the U.S. and with us—and fostering cooperation.’
‘Just to give you an idea—if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months,’ Smotrich said. ‘If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes.’
Leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, where Trump has proposed sending Gazans, vehemently oppose the plan. A counterproposal issued by Egypt and other Arab nations—which involves rebuilding Gaza without forcibly displacing its residents—has the support of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and nations including China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.
Smotrich’s remarks came on the same day that Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that he ‘just signed an order for the immediate halt of electricity to the Gaza Strip’ as part of a policy to use ‘all of the tools that are at our disposal to ensure the return of all the hostages.’