Israel says no intention to force Palestinians out of Gaza

Israel has no plans to deport Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said today, adding that Tel Aviv would coordinate its plans for hundreds of thousands of refugees in the city of Rafah with neighbouring Egypt, Reuters reports.

Deep-seated concern that Palestinians could be forced from the Gaza Strip has loomed large for both the Palestinians and their Arab neighbours ever since Israel launched its assault on the enclave on 7 October.

Israel is set to attack Rafah, and sources have said contingency plans are being made in Egypt to accommodate Palestinians if the situation were to become critical.

Katz said Israel had no alternative but to enter Rafah to defeat alleged “Hamas battalions”.

“We have no intention to deport any Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip,” Katz said.

“Israel does not want to hurt any Palestinian civilians, so we move them to safe zones while the Hamas are trying to prevent it. We have no intention to rule the civilian life in Gaza after the war. Our goal is to ensure that Gaza will be dematerialised,” he said.

When asked where the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the city would go, Katz suggested that once Gaza’s second city Khan Yunis had been cleared of Hamas fighters, they could return there or to the West of the enclave.

READ: All eyes on Rafah: Israel’s brutal evacuation plan

Western officials and aid agencies have warned that refugees being forced into Egypt would be a catastrophe.

“We will deal [with] Rafah after we speak with Egypt about it. We’ll coordinate it, we have a peace accord with them and we will find a place which will not harm the Egyptians,” Katz said. “We will coordinate everything and not harm their interests.”

Analysts have warned that Israel’s plan to launch a ground offensive in Gaza’s last standing city of Rafah is an effort to force Palestinians out of the enclave and into Egypt’s Sinai desert as part of it’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its indigenous population.