FAR RIGHT Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has reiterated his call for ‘encouraging’ Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, saying the regime’s occupation of the besieged enclave is the only way to restore security to Israel.
Ben-Gvir made the remarks during an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 news on Wednesday, weeks after he called for the displacement of the people of Gaza and reoccupation of the besieged territory to build new Israeli settlements.
‘There is no other way to restore security to Israel other than a full occupation of the Palestinian territory,’ he said, adding, ‘Voluntary immigration of the residents of Gaza should be encouraged.’
He further criticised the Israeli cabinet for not properly supporting Israeli forces that he claimed are doing an ‘excellent job’ in the ongoing war in Gaza.
‘I hope that Liked elements do not set us back in terms of achievements,’ he said of the war.
In recent months, several Israeli officials have called for the occupation of Gaza as well as genocide against the Palestinian people.
Amichai Eliyahu said Israel must decide the battle by weakening the morale of the Palestinians.
Earlier this month, Amichai Eliyahu said the residents of Gaza should be left with no option but to immigrate to other countries as part of revenge measures against them in the wake of the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm operation.
Back in November, Eliyahu called for dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has also called for encouraging the ‘emigration’ of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in order for extremist settlers to return to the area after the war.
The United Nations has already said it’s ‘deeply alarmed’ by statements from Israeli leaders about the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
Most Palestinians displaced from their homeland after the Nakba (Catastrophe), when Israel proclaimed its illegal existence on May 15, 1948, have ended up in neighbouring Arab states.
Arab leaders have maintained that any latter-day move aimed at forced expulsion of the Palestinians would be absolutely unacceptable.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has noted that 800,000 Palestinians are experiencing a real famine due to Israel’s devastating war and prevention of the entry of necessary supplies into Gaza.
Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon and a member of the group’s politburo, made the remarks a day after UN experts warned that ‘every single person’ in the war-torn Gaza is facing hunger amid Israel’s war and blockade against the territory.
He also noted that the medicines that the resistance group is providing to the captives are running out due to the Israeli blockade and aggression, stressing that any initiative to bring medicines to the captives must include bringing medicines to the Palestinians in Gaza.
‘Every single person in Gaza is hungry’ as Israel’s war rages on: UN human rights experts
United Nations human rights experts have warned that every single person in the Gaza Strip is facing hunger amid Israel’s ongoing war and blockade against the besieged enclave.
Hamdan also reiterated that the prerequisite for any prisoner exchange deal is the complete cessation of aggression on Gaza.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a ‘complete siege’ on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
- Dozens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, have been killed and many others wounded in a fresh round of Israeli strikes against the Gaza Strip as the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the besieged territory.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Friday that the casualties took place following Israel’s ongoing airstrikes, shelling and naval bombardment targeting multiple areas of Gaza.
‘Medical sources confirmed the murder of 77 civilians and the injury of dozens more in the recent hours as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression across the territory, bringing the total number of martyrs since the beginning of the Israeli war to over 24,620, in addition to more than 6,1830 injured and thousands missing,’ the news agency said.
WAFA stressed that at least 12 civilians were killed as Israeli warplanes targeted a residential apartment near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, adding, several civilians were also injured in a regime’s airstrike that hit al-Noor Mosque in the al-Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza.
‘Israeli naval forces shelled the coast of Gaza City and the northern areas of the Strip,’ the news agency said, adding: ‘Israeli warplanes and artillery further targeted various areas in the northern region of the Strip, including the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp.’
Palestinian media also reported that eight civilians were killed and an unspecified number of others were injured in the Israeli fighter jets’ overnight raids on houses in the west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles were reported to have stormed the vicinity of the Nasser Medical Complex, while the Israeli artillery shelled the surroundings of al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in Khan Younis.
The Israeli occupation forces were also said to have blown up and demolished residential homes in the southern part of Khan Younis.
A UN expert has underscores multiple instances of breach of the international law by the Israeli regime, which has brought Gaza under a genocidal war.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said last Thursday that the regime had dropped more than 65,000 tons of missiles and bombs on Gaza throughout the war.
Thousands of Palestinians are missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under ‘complete siege’ by Israel.