Gaza: US envoy says no forced displacement plan

The US ambassador said Israel is not planning forced displacement from Gaza, after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel had plans ready to remove Palestinians from the territory if Washington agreed.

Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday that Israel was “organised and prepared” to get Palestinians out “by sea, by air, by every way possible”. He said there was “no real solution for Gaza” without what he called migration.

Katz said US President Donald Trump's earlier proposal for all two million Palestinians to leave Gaza had been frozen, not cancelled, while Washington looked for countries willing to receive Palestinians. “For it to happen, we need the US,” Katz said.

Trump's later 20-point plan for Gaza included no forced displacement. Palestinians condemned the earlier proposal, and Egypt was among those pushing back against it.

Katz claimed, without citing a source, that 80 percent of people in Gaza wanted to leave but that Hamas was preventing them.

Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz's predecessor Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes, which both Israel and the United States deny.

Israeli attacks have already internally displaced the vast majority of Gaza's people after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which killed 1,221 people, according to official Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed 73,470 people in Gaza, including more than 1,330 since the ceasefire, according to the Gaza health ministry, which operates under Hamas.