US ambassador to Israel says there is no plan for forced displacement from Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that Israel has no plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. He said this during a visit to Palestinian Americans in Turmus Ayya, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
As ABC News reports, Huckabee said there is no Israeli plan to move Gaza residents against their will. His comments came after Israeli ministers this week voiced proposals for about two million Gaza residents to leave the territory.
Proposals by Israeli ministers
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Thursday presented a seven-year plan that envisages 250,000 Palestinians leaving Gaza during the first year, with the remaining approximately two million residents leaving over the following six years. He described the plan as voluntary emigration.
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A day earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the country was ready to transport Palestinians out of Gaza by sea and land, but, according to him, the United States is discussing where the population could go. Katz also said that without such migration there is no final solution for Gaza and, without citing a source, claimed that 80% of the territory’s residents want to leave but Hamas is preventing this.
US position
Huckabee said that the administration of US President Donald Trump supports the possibility for Palestinians to leave Gaza by their own choice. According to him, neither Israel nor the United States is proposing forced displacement.
The ABC report notes that the forcible transfer of civilians from occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Nearly all of Gaza’s population has already been internally displaced as a result of the Israeli military offensive following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
