Smotrich: Government establishing ‘migration administration’ for Gaza exodus
Far-right minister says plan ‘taking shape,’ budgeting won’t be an issue; Washington, Jerusalem, seeking countries to take in those who leave
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday that the government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, is working to establish a “migration administration” that will oversee the exodus of Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip.
Addressing the Knesset Land of Israel Caucus, Smotrich said that the plan was “taking shape” but acknowledged it would be a massive logistical undertaking.
The far-right minister, who recently returned from Washington, where he held a series of meetings with US officials, said that Israel is working with the Trump administration to find countries that will take in the Gazans who leave and that budgeting for such a “complex” undertaking “will not be an obstacle.”
US President Donald Trump triggered global perplexity in early February by suggesting the US “take over” Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt, Jordan or other countries.
The Palestinian Authority and Arab nations have rejected Trump’s plan outright. At the end of last week, two key Arab nations organizations instead endorsed an Egyptian counterproposal for rehabilitating Gaza that is based on leaving inhabitants in place, a stipulation that undermines Smotrich and his allies’ vision of largely clearing the enclave of Palestinians.
Gaza is in ruins, having been devastated by 15 months of war that began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas — the de facto rulers of Gaza — led thousands of terrorists to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages back to the Strip.
A January ceasefire process halted the fighting, but it has stalled and its future is unclear.
“This plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination with the administration… It involves identifying key countries, understanding their interests — both with the US and with us — and fostering cooperation,” Smotrich said of the Gaza exodus scheme and efforts to find countries that will take in the emigrants.
“There is an abysmal and deep hatred of Israel, and [US] government officials told me that 2 million people with hatred of Israel can’t be left a spitting distance from our fence,” he said, without identifying the officials.
Envisioning the exodus, Smotrich estimated that “if we take out 5,000 a day it will take a year. The logistics are complicated because we need to know who is going to which country.”
There are currently 2.1 million people in Gaza. By Smotrich’s estimation, 1.8 million of them would exit the coastal enclave given the chance.
Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock, a member of Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party, added that the removal of the security threat from Gaza cannot be achieved “except through a voluntary migration plan.”
Asserting that Gazans know only how to “think about destroying us,” Strock stressed that even if Hamas is defeated as an administrative and military entity, “as long as we don’t allow most of the population to emigrate we will not remove the threat.”
Throughout the fighting, Smotrich and others on the far-right urged using the war as an opportunity to reestablish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. Israel unilaterally dismantled its Gaza settlements in 2005. Following Trump’s announcement of his intention to empty Gaza, those voices gained volume and enthusiasm, and were echoed by senior government ministers and elements of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.
Caucus chair Yuli Edelstein of Likud said at the meeting: “Things that for decades looked impossible now seem a super-legitimate subject for discussion. The right steps should be taken to usher in a new Middle East.”
He urged against “missing the opportunities in front of us.”
Last week, the Arab League ratified the Egyptian plan for Gaza at a summit in Cairo.
The Trump administration broadcast mixed signals about the Arab-led plan for post-war management of Gaza.
Then, on Friday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation adopted the Arab League’s counter-proposal. The decision by the 57-member grouping came at an emergency meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In an interview with “Meet the Press” on Channel 12 last month, Smotrich claimed that Israel was actively in touch with Washington officials to discuss the implementation of Trump’s plan to move residents of the Gaza Strip abroad.
“The process of emigration from Gaza will begin in the coming weeks,” he claimed. “Gazans will have nothing to look for in Gaza in the next 10-15 years.”
He has previously stated that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years.
In a joint appearance with Netanyahu during his recent state visit to Washington, Trump called for permanently relocating the entire population of the Gaza Strip, insisting the Palestinians “have no alternative” but to leave the “big pile of rubble” that is Gaza after over 15 months of Israeli bombardment targeting Hamas.
Afterward, Katz, the defense minister, said he had instructed the military to prepare a plan that would enable Gazans seeking to leave the Strip voluntarily to do so.
