Within 48 hours of US President Donald Trump’s call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the displacement of its entire population, the Israeli government moved to implement the president’s proposal.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that he had instructed the military to prepare to put Trump’s plan into action. “I welcome President Trump’s bold initiative, which can create extensive opportunities for those in Gaza who wish to leave,” he said.
He added, “I have instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to prepare a plan” that would include “exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.”
On Tuesday, Trump declared that the Gaza Strip “should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that lived a miserable existence there.” Trump called for “other countries” to “build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”
The US media has pretended to be shocked and outraged by Trump’s plan, which is being falsely presented as a half-baked idea sprung by Trump on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the last minute and not discussed by his administration or Israeli officials.
This absurd presentation is belied by the fact that multiple Israeli government officials have called for the exact same plan, in the exact same language, for over a year.
In January 2024, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, declaring, “We want to encourage willful emigration, and we need to find countries willing to take them [the Palestinians] in,” adding that he would not refuse to rule out the “settlement of the Gaza Strip.”
Around the same time, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters that the war in Gaza presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” calling the move “a correct, just, moral, and humane solution.”
In reality, Trump was merely stating openly the actual policy of the Israeli government, which has been enabled, funded and armed by the Biden, and now Trump, administrations.
Responding to Trump’s plan, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that “Any forced displacement of people is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
Human Rights Watch responded to Trump’s statement by saying it “would move the US from being complicit in war crimes to direct perpetration of atrocities.”
It noted:
International humanitarian law prohibits the permanent forced displacement of the population of an occupied territory. When such forced displacement is carried out with criminal intent, it is a war crime. If carried out as part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population, reflecting state policy, it is a crime against humanity.
Trump, meanwhile, only doubled down on his plans Thursday. “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said, adding, “The US, working with great development teams from all over the world, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth.”
Netanyahu likewise restated his support for Trump’s proposal, saying that no troops would be needed because the Israeli military would crush Palestinian resistance. “That’s our commitment, our job, and we’re absolutely committed to it,” he said.
Netanyahu called Trump’s plan “remarkable,” adding, “what’s wrong with that? They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back…” He added, “This is the first good idea that I’ve heard.”
Trump signed an executive order Thursday sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing it of having “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
In recognition of the role of the US military in facilitating Israeli war crimes, the executive order declares:
The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest.
The White House declared that the court “abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.”
In May, the chief prosecutor of the ICC applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan accused the Israeli leaders of presiding over the “murder” and “extermination” of Palestinians, as part of a “common plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population as a means to … collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza.”
In announcing the charges, the prosecutor accused Netanyahu and Gallant of:
the following war crimes and crimes against humanity: Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime; Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health … or cruel treatment as a war crime; Willful killing … or murder as a war crime; Extermination and/or murder … including in the context of deaths caused by starvation.
To date, 47,583 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks, according to official death tolls, with a recent study published in The Lancet estimating the death toll could be 70,000 or more.