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‘100-200,000, Not Two Million’: Israel’s Finance Minister Envisions Depopulated Gaza

 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-31/ty-article/100-200-000-not-two-million-israels-finance-minister-envisions-depopulated-gaza/0000018c-bfe8-d6c4-ab8d-fffc0b910000

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich joined a growing list of senior lawmakers who expressed support for large-scale transfer of Gaza’s civilian population as a solution to Israel’s post-war security concerns.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel must control the territory in the Gaza Strip and significantly reduce the number of Palestinian residents in Gaza.

In an interview to army radio, the far-right minister said that his “demand” was for the Gaza Strip to stop being a “hotbed where two million people grow up on hatred and aspire to destroy the State of Israel.”

Without outlining his preferred method, Smotrich then suggested that the removal of around 90 percent of Gaza’s residents would help achieve his goal. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million, the whole discourse about the day after will be different,” he said.

The Religious Zionism party chairman then noted that in order to regain security, Israel must control the Gaza Strip, and that “in order to control the territory militarily over time, you must also have civilian presence there.”

Smotrich’s comments are the latest in a growing list of troubling remarks by Israeli lawmakers to seemingly support expelling Gazans en masse out of the Strip in order to ensure Israel’s security after the war.

January 5, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international