by Dave DeCamp*
May 12, 2025
The Israeli leader said the ‘main problem’ preventing ’emigration’ was the lack of countries willing to take in Palestinian refugees
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza was “inevitable.”
“We are destroying more and more homes, and Gazans have nowhere to return to. The only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Israeli officials have made clear that the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza is their ultimate goal, but it remains unclear where the Palestinians would go. Netanyahu told the committee that the “main problem” preventing “emigration” is the lack of countries willing to take in the Palestinians.
Israel has maintained a total blockade on Gaza since March 2 and has developed plans to start bringing in aid using private US security contractors to use food to lure starving Palestinians into a tiny part of southern Gaza. Netanyahu said that the aid would be conditional on the Palestinians not returning to where they came from.
Netanyahu also said Israel was currently not planning to establish Jewish settlements in Gaza at the moment because President Trump is interested in having the US take over the territory.
Limor Son Har-Melech, an Israeli MK and member of the Jewish Power Party, suggested American Jews could move to Gaza. “Bring the Jews from the United States, this way we’ll hit two birds with one stone,” he said.
*Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
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