DayofPal– In a provocative interview with the French daily Le Figaro, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar rejected the widely recognized classification of the West Bank as “occupied territory,” instead labeling it “disputed land,” and reiterated his government’s hardline stance against Palestinian statehood and leadership.
Sa’ar’s remarks come amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, which have drawn widespread international condemnation for the scale of destruction and civilian casualties.
Despite these concerns, Sa’ar defended the genocide, framing it as a necessary operation to retrieve Israeli captives and dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities.
“If Hamas lays down its arms and withdraws, the war would end tomorrow,” Sa’ar claimed, while accusing the group of rejecting peaceful resolutions. He added that the goal of Israel’s assaults in Gaza is to neutralize future threats and secure the release of captives, dismissing accusations of genocide as unfounded.
In a striking admission, Sa’ar affirmed that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s contentious Gaza “resettlement plan”, widely denounced as an ethnic cleansing strategy, remains a live option.
“The plan is still on the table,” he said, noting two key prerequisites for its implementation: “voluntary emigration” of Gazans, and the identification of countries willing to accept them.
He insisted that the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, a population that has endured more than 18 months of relentless bombardment and humanitarian collapse, would not amount to forced displacement. “Those who want to leave should be allowed to do so,” he said.
According to a report by Axios, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has assigned Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, to explore diplomatic channels for the displacement of significant numbers of Gazans.
The effort reportedly revives Trump’s shelved plan to remove over two million Palestinians from Gaza under the guise of reconstructing the enclave into a “Middle Eastern Riviera”, a proposal previously rejected by the international community and human rights groups as both unfeasible and ethically indefensible.
Sa’ar further rebuffed any prospects for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank under current circumstances, citing the possibility of Hamas taking control as a critical security risk. He dismissed the Palestinian Authority as an unviable partner for peace, blaming its leadership for the stagnation of negotiations.
His comments underscore the Israeli government’s increasingly entrenched posture regarding the future of Palestinian territories, as diplomatic isolation grows and calls for accountability mount on the global stage.
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