DaysofPal – Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday that senior Israeli security officials had met to discuss the possibility of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, despite repeated failures to advance such plans and the absence of any country willing to receive those displaced.
Israel’s National Security Council chief Shmuel Ben Ezra held an urgent meeting with senior defense officials to discuss “encouraging voluntary emigration” from Gaza, the newspaper said.
Representatives from the Israeli military, the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and the Mossad foreign intelligence service attended the meeting.
Mossad officials told participants that the agency has been unable to find any country willing to take Palestinians from Gaza, according to Haaretz.
Defense officials expressed surprise at the urgency of the meeting, noting that similar discussions had been held repeatedly in the past without producing any tangible progress.
“So far, we know of no country in the world that is willing to take in Palestinians who choose to leave the Gaza Strip,” one official told the newspaper. “We also don’t know of any change that would enable such a move without complex coordination between international elements.”
A security source cited by Haaretz said it could not be ruled out that the renewed discussions were part of a political “compensation” package offered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by U.S. President Donald Trump following the U.S.-Iran agreement.
A member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee also told the newspaper that any plan to relocate Gaza’s Palestinian population lacks both “political and international feasibility,” citing the firm opposition of Arab states and the broader international community.
Longstanding Calls for “Voluntary Emigration”
Proposals to remove Palestinians from Gaza have featured prominently in Israeli political discourse since the outbreak of the war in October 2023.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have all publicly expressed support for the concept in various forms. Similar positions have also been voiced by members of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
In 2025, Katz established a special directorate within the Defense Ministry to oversee what the government calls the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza residents. Last month, the defense minister said the removal of the Palestinian population from Gaza would take place “at the appropriate time.”
According to a poll conducted last year by the Jewish People Policy Institute, more than 70 percent of Likud voters supported the idea of expelling Palestinians from their homeland.
Likud Lawmaker Calls for Expulsion Across the West Bank
Support for the expulsion of Palestinians extends beyond Gaza, according to remarks made this week by Nissim Vaturi, a Likud lawmaker and deputy speaker of the Knesset.
Speaking to Israel’s Channel 14 News on Tuesday, Vaturi argued that Jewish Israelis “will not be able to live here in peace until we expel all the Arabs from this area,” referring to the occupied West Bank.
“There should not be any Arabs there at all,” he said.
Vaturi called for expanding Jewish settlements across what Israel refers to as Judea and Samaria, saying this was the only way to secure Israel’s future.
“We need to strengthen Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” he said. “Only in this way will we be able to live here in the Land of Israel.”
He added that Israel should begin discussing “where Arabs should be removed and where Jews should be settled.”
“That’s what needs to be done to strengthen Israel,” Vaturi said. “There is no other way; they all need to be expelled from here.”
Vaturi has repeatedly voiced support for the expulsion of Palestinians. In November, he said the late ultranationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel, “was right.”
He has also previously called for Israel to “separate the children and women and kill the adults in Gaza” and urged authorities to “burn Gaza” following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack.
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