[News] Ethnic Cleansing - Israel pushing Palestinians to leave Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-pushing-palestinians-leave-gaza 



  Israel pushing Palestinians to leave Gaza

Maureen Clare Murphy 
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> - 19 August 
2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israel is actively encouraging and ready to facilitate mass emigration 
of Palestinians from Gaza, according to a senior government official.

“Israel is ready to carry the costs of helping Gazans emigrate,” and 
would potentially use air force bases in Israel for that purpose, /The 
Times of Israel/ reported 
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-actively-pushing-palestinian-emigration-from-gaza-official-says/> 
on Monday.

The unnamed official, in Kyiv as part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s delegation 
to Ukraine, added that more than 35,000 Palestinians left the coastal 
enclave last year.

Two million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, which has been 
subjected to a punishing Israeli economic blockade for 12 years and 
repeated military offensives.

Residents of the territory have been plunged into poverty and cut off 
from the rest of Palestine and the wider world.

Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside 
what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their 
right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.

The senior Israeli official was reported by /The Times of Israel/ as 
saying that his government is asking countries to absorb Palestinians 
emigrating from Gaza.

“The official said the National Security Council had been spearheading 
the effort, with Netanyahu’s blessing, for about a year,” /The Times of 
Israel/ added. It has also been “discussed in the security cabinet 
several times.”

No European or Middle Eastern country has agreed to participate in the 
scheme, according to the publication. The official did not say whether 
any other governments are cooperating.

The revelation is an example of how ideas that supposedly exist only at 
the extreme fringes of Israeli politics are often not far from 
government policy.

During Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, Moshe Feiglin, then deputy speaker 
of Israel’s parliament, proposed a plan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/concentrate-and-exterminate-israel-parliament-deputy-speakers-gaza-genocide-plan> 
to “concentrate” Palestinians in Gaza in border camps and “exterminate” 
any who resisted, while destroying all civilian housing and infrastructure.

Feiglin, who represented Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, suggested that 
“Israel will start searching for emigration destinations and quotas for 
the refugees from Gaza.”


    Increased emigration from Gaza

Emigration from Gaza – including among recent university graduates, who 
face the highest unemployment rates in the world – has been on the rise 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/chasing-dreams-outside-gazas-walls/26286>.

It is no secret that Israeli leaders have maximalist designs on all of 
historic Palestine. Making life unbearable to coerce Palestinians to 
leave their land is the primary motivation of many of Israel’s policies 
in the West Bank and Gaza.

But Israeli officials generally don’t admit to it or tell media that 
government offices are executing such plans.

Human rights groups have long stated that the economic blockade on Gaza 
is an act of collective punishment, imposed after Hamas took control of 
internal affairs in the territory in 2007. Israel says it is a security 
measure.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has affirmed 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-blockade-icrc/israels-gaza-blockade-breaks-law-says-icrc-idUSTRE65D00R20100614> 
that Israel’s siege is an illegal act of collective punishment.

Critics of the blockade contend that Israel’s siege and repeated 
military assaults on Gaza are aimed at breaking resistance to the 
occupation 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-wants-break-gaza-once-and-all>.

Since early 2018, more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed 
during Great March of Return 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return> protests 
calling for an end to Israel’s siege. Those demonstrations have also 
demanded that Palestinian refugees be allowed to exercise their right to 
return.

Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza 
outside the context of protests during that same period.


    Eight Palestinians killed in Gaza

On Saturday, three Palestinians were killed by Israeli helicopter and 
tank fire along the northern Gaza-Israel boundary.

Israel claimed 
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/three-palestinians-killed-by-live-israeli-fire-gazan-health-ministry-reports-1.7692937> 
that the slain men – identified 
<https://twitter.com/press221/status/1162958718092357632> by Gaza’s 
health ministry as Mahmoud Adel al-Walayda, 24, Muhammad Farid Abu 
Namous, 27 and Muhammad Samir al-Taramsi, 26 – were armed.

Israeli media reported that the deadly strike on Gaza followed the 
launch of three rockets from the territory, causing no injuries. A 
rocket was also reportedly fired from Gaza on Friday and intercepted 
before it landed in Israel.

The killing of the three men brings to eight the number of Palestinians 
from Gaza slain by Israel in a single week.

Occupation forces killed 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/attempt-by-heavily-armed-palestinians-from-gaza-to-enter-israel-thwarted-army-says-1.7655783> 
four armed Palestinians as they allegedly attempted to breach the 
Gaza-Israel boundary on 10 August.

The following day, Israeli forces killed another Palestinian 
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-hamas-shakes-off-responsibility-for-operative-who-shot-at-israeli-forces-1.7659608> 
who shot at soldiers while he attempted to cross the boundary.

On Monday, factions in Gaza warned 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-gaza-is-a-volcano-about-to-erupt-palestinian-factions-warn-israel-1.7696268> 
Israel that the Strip is “a volcano about to erupt.”


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