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knesset
Israeli Knesset Hosts Conference on Plan to 'Occupy Gaza' and 'Relocate Gazans'
"There is a purpose to this war, and it’s a criminal one," wrote Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in Haaretz this past weekend.
Jul 23, 2025
The Israeli Knesset hosted a conference on Tuesday in which far-right politicians and settlers openly discussed a "proposed plan" to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and annex it for Israel.
At the conference, titled "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's defense ministry, said "We will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel."
Throughout the speech, he was met with cheers from other members of the Knesset and radical settler groups in attendance.
Smotrich claimed that Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir favors the idea of occupying part of Gaza through a so-called "security annexation."
"I truly believe there is a tremendous opportunity here," Smotrich said, suggesting that Israel begin "with the northern border [area of the strip] and establish three communities there. We are already talking about it. Some call it a 'security annexation'."
Smotrich described this occupation as a path to fully conquer Gaza, and spoke of "a proposed plan to relocate Gazans to other countries," which he said "will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip."
He spoke of a "green light from the president of the United States to turn Gaza into a prosperous strip, a resort town with employment," referring to U.S. President Trump's stated support for efforts to remove more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to turn the strip into a "resort town."
During the conference, many plans for the Jewish settlement of Gaza and the expulsion of Palestinians were presented by Knesset members and settler groups.
Daphna Liel, of Israeli news network Channel 12, reported that one plan, presented by the far-right settler group Nachala, involved the construction of over 300,000 housing units for 1.2 million Jewish settlers, who'd live there "without Gazans because they will all be expelled or emigrate, and not only voluntarily."
Daniella Weiss , the leader of Nachala, said: "The Arab Gaza chapter is over."
"And then they wonder why the world isn't convinced that Israel is there only to defend itself," Liel wrote in response.
Kariv Galid, a member of the Knesset from the Democrats—a minor center-left party in Israel—expressed shock at Smotrich's language.
"Sometimes it is appropriate to be cautious, to be meticulous, and to choose words and titles carefully. Sometimes it is necessary to say things clearly and as they are," Galid wrote on X. "The Finance Minister of the State of Israel, who also serves as an additional minister in the Defense Ministry, is calling for the commission of war crimes."
These statements are hardly new for Smotrich, who has spoken at length about the dream of conquering Gaza and evicting its people at multiple other conferences over the past two years.
But it's the first time such a conference has been held in Israel's parliament, revealing the extent to which ethnic cleansing has been assimilated into the mainstream of the nation's politics.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long insisted that Israel had no plans to resettle Gaza or to force the Palestinians out, but recent events and reporting suggest otherwise.
Last week, Barak Ravid of Axios reported on a meeting between Mossad spy chief David Barnea and White House envoy Steve Witkoff in which the two discussed the "evacuation" of Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, including Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya.
That news came as it was revealed that Israel had destroyed over 70% of the buildings in Gaza and that its blockade of humanitarian aid was resulting in an unprecedented wave of mass starvation and malnutrition.
The United Nations also now reports that more than 1,000 aid seekers have been killed in under two months at sites administered by the U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The Israeli military Sunday also issued new evacuation orders for large areas in North and South Gaza, where Palestinians were told that if they refuse they would be targeted.
The orders followed an announcement by Defense Minister Israel Katz to build what he called a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of Rafah—a camp where more than 600,000 Palestinians would be corralled with no right to leave.
Former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon spoke out against these actions in a post on X on Monday.
"Evacuating all residents from their homes indiscriminately, systematically demolishing houses, and concentrating them into a small area referred to as a 'humanitarian city' for the purpose of voluntary deportation—this is a series of war crimes under international law," said Yaalon.
In Haaretz, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy described this so-called humanitarian city as "the first Israeli concentration camp." He continued:
Systematic destruction is proceeding throughout the enclave so that there is nowhere to return to other than the concentration camp...
Israel is quietly perpetrating a crime against humanity. Not a house here and a house there, no "operational necessities," but a systematic elimination of any chance of life there, while preparing the infrastructure for concentrating people in a "humanitarian" city...That is the plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
This is no longer a rolling war. One can no longer accuse Benjamin Netanyahu of waging a war with no purpose. There is a purpose to this war, and it's a criminal one.
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Far-Right Israeli Lawmakers Demand 'Complete Cleansing' of Northern Gaza
The Knesset members are urging the Israeli military to destroy all sources of water, food, and energy—and to kill "anyone not flying a white flag of surrender."
Jan 03, 2025
At least seven far-right members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, are calling on the country's defense minister to order the total destruction of northern Gaza's food, water, and energy sources—most of which have already been obliterated by 15 months of relentless attacks—and the killing of any Palestinian who isn't clearly surrendering to the attackers.
In a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz dated December 31, the lawmakers assert that the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) campaign to forcibly expel Palestinians from northern Gaza—which critics have called ethnic cleansing—"isn't being done properly" and is not "achieving the war objectives as defined by the government, which is the dismantling of Hamas' governing and military capabilities."
According to a translation by international humanitarian law expert Itay Epshtain on Thursday, the letter calls on the IDF to:
- Destroy all energy sources including fuel, solar systems, generators, and power lines;
- Destroy all food sources including warehouses, water, and water pumps; and
- Lay siege and remotely kill everyone not flying a white flag of surrender.
That last demand apparently includes men, women, and children. IDF troops would then "enter gradually for a complete cleansing of the enemy's nests," according to the letter.
cc ICC
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— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim.bsky.social) January 2, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Lawmakers who signed the letter and their party affiliations include: Avraham Bezalel (Shas), Amit Halevi (Likud), Limor Son Har-Melech (Jewish Power), Osher Shkalim (Likud), Zvi Sukkot and Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism), and Nissim Vaturi (Likud).
Vaturi, the deputy Knesset speaker, previously called for Gaza to be "wiped off the face of the Earth" and argued for Israel to "stop being humane" and "burn Gaza now," because "there are no innocents there."
Notably, the lawmakers' letter does not mention anything about freeing the more than 60 hostages believed to be alive and imprisoned by Hamas and possibly other groups in Gaza.
As Israeli journalist Bar Peleg reported Friday from the Jabalia refugee camp:
When the soldiers and officers in Jabalia are asked about their mission, the answer is destroying Hamas and its infrastructure, until the last terrorist is laid to rest. When they are asked, "And what about the hostages?" One soldier answered, "That concerns us, like it does everyone, but it isn't a part of our operational considerations."
Northern Gaza is already in ruins. As Peleg noted, "not a single habitable building remains" in Jabalia. Nearly all homes, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged.
"Look at the extent of the destruction and annihilation here," one IDF officer said. "No one has done this before."
An IDF officer recently told Haaretz that one commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, seeks to personally execute the so-called Generals' Plan—a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza—by besieging and expelling 250,000 Palestinians from the area. United Nations officials estimate that more than 100,000 Palestinians have been forced from northern Gaza, even as the IDF says it disavows the Generals' Plan.
IDF troops, Palestinian witnesses, international medical volunteers, and others have described alleged war crimes including the indiscriminate killings of Gazans of all ages throughout the embattled strip.
Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza has also caused the sickening and starvation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans. At least dozens of children and babies have died of malnutrition or hypothermia.
Israeli policies and actions, as well as written and spoken calls for the destruction of Gaza and its people, have been presented as evidence in the South African-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister who ordered the siege of Gaza, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued arrest warrants for the pair and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Israel's 455-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza has left at least 165,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to officials there.
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'Grotesque': Israeli Knesset Bans UN Agency in Charge of Humanitarian Aid in Gaza
"This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly's founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel's international legal obligations."
Oct 28, 2024
Over a year into Israel's obliteration of the Gaza Strip, Israeli lawmakers faced sharp criticism on Monday after voting for a pair of bills targeting the United Nations agency responsible for humanitarian aid in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
The first bill, which says that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) "will not operate any missions, won't provide any service, and won't hold any activity—directly or indirectly—in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel," passed the Israeli parliament 92-10.
The second legislative proposal—under which the Israeli agency that handles humanitarian issues, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), will have to cut off contact with UNRWA—passed the 120-member Knesset 87-9. Critics called the votes "grotesque" and "outrageous."
The Israel-based organization Adalah said in a statement that "despite widespread international pressure and condemnation, the Knesset has nearly unanimously passed two bills aimed at dismantling UNRWA, all while Israel continues its genocidal assault on Gaza and intensifies violence across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem."
"This legislation threatens a vital lifeline for over 2.5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the occupied Palestinian territory," the group warned. "It represents a deliberate attempt to fundamentally undermine UNRWA and its essential mission of supporting the relief, education, and human development of Palestinian refugees. Specifically, the laws aim to strip Palestinians—who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war—of their status as refugees and their right of return."
The United Nations General Assembly created UNRWA in 1949, in the wake of the Nakba, or "catastrophe," when more than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homeland to establish the modern state of Israel—whose officials have claimed without providing evidence that a dozen of the agency's 13,000 staffers in Gaza were involved with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
"This legislation not only contravenes the basic principles of human rights that led to the U.N. General Assembly's founding of UNRWA, but also violates a range of Israel's international legal obligations, including those under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court," said Adalah. "The international community must hold Israel accountable."
Although Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Hamas-controlled Gaza—which has killed at least 43,020 people and injured another 101,110 since last October—governments around the world have not acted to stop the bloodshed. The U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden's administration have even provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and blocked cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off weapons if the Israeli government does not take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's letter specifically raised concerns about the legislation that passed the Knesset Monday.
Asked about the Israeli bills on Monday, Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesperson frequently slammed for his statements about Israel, pointed to the secretaries' criticism of the legislation in the recent letter and acknowledged that UNRWA serves the West Bank and plays "an irreplaceable role" in Gaza, where Palestinians are starving to death.
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday that "Israel has bombed Palestinians to death, maimed them, starved them, and is now ridding them of their biggest lifeline of aid. Piece by piece, Israel is systemically dismantling Gaza as a land that is autonomous and liveable for Palestinians."
"Its banning of UNRWA today is condemnable and another step in this crime," she argued. "The decision will further undermine the ability of the international community to provide sufficient humanitarian aid and to save lives in any safe, independent, and impartial way. UNRWA was not only the biggest and most established agency that has been delivering aid and sustenance to the people of Gaza for years, it was also a thread that connected them in some hope of solidarity and security to the United Nations."
"We are in no doubt that Israel and its allies are fully aware of the terrible consequences that this decision will have on Palestinians living in Gaza, many of whom are already starving," she added. "We join others in warning again that this will result in more death, more suffering, and more forced displacement of people from their besieged homeland. It is impossible not to believe that this is their aim."
Leading up to the votes, human rights advocates have been sounding the alarm. On Saturday, over 50 groups including Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and ActionAid released a joint statement demanding action and warning that "dismantling UNRWA would be catastrophic for Palestinians especially in Gaza and the West Bank as they are deprived of essentials such as food, water, medical aid, education, and protection. It will also have catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, where essential humanitarian aid is crucial for both the refugees and the host communities."
Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner-general, delivered a similar warning on social media Monday, declaring that the Knesset action not only "is unprecedented and sets a dangerous precedent" but "it opposes the U.N. Charter and violates the state of Israel's obligations under international law."
"This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role towards providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine Refugees," he continued. "These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell."
"It will deprive over 650,000 girls and boys there from education, putting at risk an entire generation of children," Lazzarini added. "These bills increase the suffering of the Palestinians and are nothing less than collective punishment."
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