‘This is a war’: FM urges Gaza-style temporary evacuation of Palestinians in West Bank
Israel Katz calls for ‘temporary evacuation of Palestinian civilians’ from cities where IDF is engaged in anti-terror raid, receives backing from Agriculture Minister Dichter
Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday called on Israel to consider temporarily relocating Palestinians as part of a major anti-terror raid in the northern West Bank the IDF launched in the wake of last week’s attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
“We need to deal with the [terror] threat exactly as we deal with terror infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian civilians and any other step needed,” Israel’s senior diplomat tweeted, calling the operation “a war in every sense.”
Katz said that Israeli forces operating in Jenin, Tulkarem and other areas are working to dismantle an Iranian-backed terror network being built up in the West Bank.
“Iran is working to establish a terror front against Israel in [the West Bank], according to the model it used in Lebanon and Gaza, by funding and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons from Jordan,” he tweeted.
At least 11 Palestinians have been reported killed so far in clashes and IDF drone strikes. Several wanted Palestinians have also been detained amid the operation, according to the military.
According to the United Nations, around 88.5 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip “has been placed under evacuation orders” in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel last October 7 as the IDF battles the terror group, which is deeply embedded in civilian areas, while attempting to keep noncombatants safe. This includes nearly one million people evacuated from Rafah before Israel’s offensive in May.
The international organization said Monday that it had been forced to halt its humanitarian operations in Gaza due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, according to a senior UN official.
Palestinians in Gaza ordered to flee Israeli military action have expressed fear that their forcible removal will become permanent as part of an plot to grab more territory. Israel says the moves are necessary to protect civilians who could be caught in the crossfire as it battles Hamas-led fighters in the Strip.
According to the Israel Hayom daily, Katz — who was recently criticized for inflammatory social media posts by former Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy — had previously made similar remarks regarding evacuating Jenin during a closed meeting with settler leaders.
Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter appeared to back up Katz, telling Army Radio that “if we have to evacuate people in order to keep our soldiers safe, they will be evacuated. They are not being sent abroad — they are being evacuated and after that they will return home.”
Previous public statements about the conflict by Katz, Dichter and other senior officials have been cited in the International Court of Justice in the Hague as part of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.
South Africa’s application to the ICJ alleged that Israel has violated several articles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — to which Israel is signatory — during the war, including committing genocide, incitement to genocide, attempted genocide and failure to punish incitement to genocide.
The statements cited included Katz’s October 13 tweet declaring: “We will fight the terrorist organization Hamas and destroy it. All the civilian population in gaza [sic] is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world.”
South Africa also quoted Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu’s statement that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and that the use of nuclear weapons against Hamas would be an option.
They “know my position, even in the Hague they know my position,” he later boasted.
According to a report in the Walla news site last month, the state attorney has considered probing some of the lawmakers whose calls for destroying all of the Gaza Strip were mentioned during proceedings at the ICJ.
Last month, the Kan public broadcaster reported that State Attorney Amit Aisman had sought to investigate National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for incitement to violence against Gazans — a move widely seen as a signal to international courts that Jerusalem is capable of launching legal proceedings against its own officials.
On August 12, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the bloc should consider sanctioning Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for comments he said constituted “incitement to war crimes.”
Writing on X, Borrell condemned Ben Gvir for once again urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut all aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip. He also slammed the “sinister statements” of Smotrich, who recently remarked that starving two million Gazans by withholding aid — in order to get the Hamas hostages back — might be “justified and moral.”
Smotrich later told Kan news his comments had been misunderstood.
Jeremy Sharon and AFP contributed to this report.
