Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime.
Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration” during a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He said the Israeli government was “organised and prepared to get them out by sea, by air, by every way possible”.
Trump discussed a US takeover of the Gaza Strip in early 2025 that would have involved removing Palestinians from the territory, but has since pulled back from the idea. A 20-point peace plan the White House drew up last year did not call for Palestinians’ deportation, an act that would be widely seen as ethnic cleansing. Katz, however, said on Wednesday that he believed US support could tip regional opinion in favour of the forced resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza. He said Trump’s approval was crucial to convince neighbouring countries to accept Palestinian refugees.
“Every country that is willing to take them in wants American backing,” he said. “Trump has not cancelled this at the moment. He has frozen it.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request from the Guardian for comment on whether Trump was continuing to hold discussions on Israel’s proposals to forcibly depopulate the Gaza Strip.
Katz pointed in particular to Egypt, which he said had lobbied Washington to oppose the forced removal of the Palestinian population. “It has not been cancelled,” he said. “It is being discussed all the time, including now, and I think there is no other solution in the end that is in everyone’s interest.”
The remarks come during a competitive election season in Israel in which the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his rightwing allies have appealed to voters by calling for more aggressive measures against Palestinians.
Some have been openly inflammatory and cruel. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted footage on X from a women’s prison where he said he was responsible for the dire conditions in the facility.
When one prisoner told him they were not receiving medical care, showering or receiving clean clothing, Ben-Gvir said: “The good conditions in the prisons are over. This is the current situation, and I am directly responsible for everything. I am pleased with these conditions.”
Netanyahu visited an Israeli military post close to the yellow line in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Israel has said it would not pull back from that line until Hamas disarmed, despite calls for a phased withdrawal to facilitate a recent ceasefire with the group.
“We control the territory and are staying on this line,” Netanyahu said. “We are doing everything to achieve our goal – disarming Hamas and demilitarising Gaza. Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
The corporate media are complicit in the Gaza genocide. Never forget what they did. Never forgive them for it.
Re: Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’
The Fraudian is the deserved nickname for the Guardian: in reporting on the forced removal of Gazans we get Israel's "better for everyone" viewpoint, no Palestinian spokesperson at all, and the blatant ethnic-cleansing is described as only a "POTENTIAL war crime" etc. When it really counts on the crux issues, it waves through the establishment line with maybe a 'reluctant' looking shrug. And this is supposedly 'truth to power' in the mainstream. Go F yourselves mortgage-paying complicit fraudianite scum.
Yup. A rival for the torygraph as house paper of MI5 and now Shin Bet
That was my purpose in highlighting the "widely seen" in the middle there.
Instead of just saying "A 20-point peace plan the White House drew up last year did not call for Palestinians’ deportation, an act that WOULD BE ethnic cleansing." they always have to try to soften or qualify it, with the "widely seen" acting as a precursor to them saying "Some say this is ethnic cleansing, but israel/US/UK denies this."
Every single thing that we've all said they want to do, and that has been denied/distracted from/or covered-up by these whores, ends up coming around. And these bastards just skip on their way with no consequences. Then they wonder why nobody trusts them.
Disgusting.
The corporate media are complicit in the Gaza genocide. Never forget what they did. Never forgive them for it.
on September 2, 2026, 8:49 pm