This is an idea that is likely to spark defenders of the Palestinian cause. Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel on Sunday called on the international community to “promote the voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians “outside the Gaza Strip”, after the war between his country and Hamaswhich has controlled the enclave since 2007.
In a text published by the Jerusalem Post, Gila Gamliel, member of Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proposed “to promote the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza outside the Gaza Strip, for humanitarian reasons”.
“It would be a win-win,” according to her. “For the civilians of Gaza, who want a better life, and for Israel, after this terrible tragedy” of October 7.
That day, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched an attack on an unprecedented scale in Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. Some 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Palestinian territory.
Since then, the Israeli army relentlessly bombs the Gaza Strip to “eradicate” Hamas. According to the Hamas government, 12,300 people, two-thirds of them women and children, were killed.
After 44 days of war, more than 1.6 million people had to move to the Gaza Stripor two thirds of the population of the small territory.
While 80% of Gazans are themselves refugees or descendants of refugees who left their homes during the “Nakba”, the “catastrophe” that the creation of Israel represented for them in 1948, many of them , including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, today denounce a “second Nakba”.
“We tried everything”
The Israeli minister also criticized the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in her forum. “Rather than sending money to rebuild Gaza or to the failing UNRWA, the international community can help fund resettlement and help Gazans build their new lives in their new host countries,” Gila wrote Gamliel.
“We tried many different solutions: withdrawal (of settlements from the Gaza Strip), enrichment, conflict management and building high walls in the hope of keeping the Hamas monsters out of Israel. They all failed,” she said.