Israel's plan for the "voluntary" deportation of Palestinians

BarcelonaThis week the Israeli military said it has created a special unit to prepare for the deportation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. The military says it will only expel those who want to leave the Strip "voluntarily." It is unclear how many people will be affected in the near future. The military will command a larger, inter-ministerial unit that will open the borders to Palestinians who want to leave the terrifying landscape of the Strip behind. Palestinians from Gaza will pass through Israel, but will immediately leave the country for a destination that is currently unknown. According to the military, negotiations are underway with a third country, whose name has not been revealed, to take in the expatriates.

Israelis present deportation as a brilliant initiative of Donald Trump, but the idea has been circulating in Israel for decades. Numerous leaders, especially on the far right, but not only on the far right, have considered this idea at various times in recent history. In fact, Israel already methodically applied it during the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. It is an opportunity that has not presented itself so clearly for almost eight decades and is now backed by the American president. It is very difficult for Benjamin Netanyahu to miss such an opportunity to empty the Strip, even if only partially.

The maps published by Israeli ministries – and the Hebrew media in general – have for many years incorporated Gaza into Israel. Many of the maps do not even differentiate the occupied territories of the West Bank from Israel and do the same with the part of the Golan occupied in Syria in the 1967 war.

We will probably see the Netanyahu government helping to persuade Palestinians to leave. It has many resources at its disposal. By making life even more difficult for the Palestinian population, it will find incentives to leave "voluntarily", at least a part of the population.

Making life impossible for them as a method of persuasion

Netanyahu is limiting the entry of material to rebuild the general destruction of the Strip, a stance that also helps Palestinians consider leaving. Hamas says theceasefire agreement reached with Israel In January, this is not being fulfilled. According to this agreement, the Palestinian group says, Israel committed to allowing the entry of 200,000 tents and 60,000 prefabricated caravans to house the population, but it is only allowing in a small fraction of this material. This Friday, the first 12 prefabricated houses were brought in, according to Hamas.

It is also not allowing in the machinery that was agreed upon. This means that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians have nowhere to sleep, nowhere to cook, nowhere to drink clean water. All the infrastructure in the Strip has been deliberately destroyed, and it cannot be restored quickly, especially if Israel does not allow the entry of material, as is happening.

Israel hopes that by making life miserable for everyone it will succeed in getting a significant part of the population, 2.3 million civilians, to leave. Once they have left "voluntarily", no Palestinian will have the opportunity to return to Gaza. It is a way of continuing a war that has never ended. In this vein, Netanyahu has repeatedly recalled, including this week, that he does not consider the war over, and we must not forget that he has the support of President Trump.