Israeli Minister repeatedly calls for permanent Palestinian expulsion from Gaza

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the best option for Gaza would be for the Palestinians to “voluntarily” immigrate to other countries, leaving only a small Arab minority that supports Israel, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Army Radio on Sunday.

“If in Gaza there will be 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs and not 2 million the entire conversation on ‘the day after’ will look different,” Smotrich said.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for the Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.

In response, Hamas said Smotrich’s call to displace two million Palestinians and keep about 200,000 in Gaza is “a war crime accompanied by criminal aggression”.

In a statement, Hamas added that the international community and the United Nations must take action to stop Israel’s crimes and hold it accountable for what it has done to the Palestinian people.

In a speech on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected any move to force Palestinians to leave their homes.“We will not allow displacement, whether from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank,” he said.

On May 15, 1948 called “Al Nakba”, which means The Catastrophe” – Zionist forces announced to establish ‘state of Israel’ on Palestinian land.

Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state.

Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.

There are some six million registered Palestinian refugees living in at least 58 camps located throughout Palestine and neighbouring countries.