Comment on Israel’s decision to remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip and Palestinians in the First-Principles Address of the State Department
It is unsure because we are writing a blank check to the leader of the government who is not as open about his intentions as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. According to Israeli news reports, Netanyahu said this week the government was considering a plan to deport residents of the Gaza Strip. (Some outlets reported that Netanyahu was referring only to Hamas leaders.) According to a Times of Israel article, “The ‘voluntary’ resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming a key official policy of the government, with a senior official saying that Israel has held talks with several countries for their potential absorption.”
Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat who has called for a cease-fire, thanked the State Department in a social media post, saying, “It must be clear that America will not write a blank check for mass displacement.”
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Palestinian Authority Voluntary Migrants and the Problem of the Reconstruction of Gaza: Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. John Graham, and Defense Secretary Josep Borrell
“You can’t have the foreign aid diverted to build tunnels, right? That model doesn’t work. You’ve got to have someone taking over the Palestinian file that has money and will,” Graham said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in Israel this week, urged the revival of prospects of a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that could see the Saudis involved in Gaza, he said.
Most of the reconstruction funds will come from Arab countries in the Gulf. The reconstruction would be overseen by a multinational task force led by the U.S.
A key issue is the reconstruction of Gaza. If anyone is in charge of the effort, it will be a monumental task. As many as half of all buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by Israel’s bombardment, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York.
Miller said that the rhetoric was inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been repeatedly told by the Government of Israel, including the Prime Minister, that statements like these do not reflect the government’s policy. They should stop immediately.
Josep Borrell is the top foreign policy official of the European Union. “Forced displacements are strictly prohibited as a grave violation” of international humanitarian law, he wrote in a statement on the social media platform X. “Words matter.”
Source: Many ideas, but little agreement, over what a postwar Gaza could look like
Israel’s “no withdrawal” plan in the Gaza Strip after the Oct. 7 attack: Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinians
Israeli forces “cannot withdraw from any territory — we are in the Gaza Strip,” Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, told reporters Monday. “Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there — I believe it is also an important thing.”
The new plan by Gallant came amid international outcry over comments this week from two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
“If you cannot imagine Palestinian community or society or state without Hamas, then you need to give an alternative for the Palestinian people,” said Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, in an interview in December with the British think tank Chatham House. “Doing anything on behalf of the Palestinians who will lead them has not worked in the past and will not work now.”
“Nobody will be accepted by Palestinian society unless Palestinians feel that that person is there to represent their will and they chose them,” Palestinian activist Fadi Quran told NPR in December.
A December survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 40% of Gaza residents preferred a postwar government that involved the Palestinian Authority, more so than the 23% who preferred one led by Hamas. Neither option got a majority.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of the Palestinian Authority’s policy to pay families of detainees held by Israel, voiced his opposition to the Biden plan.
The Biden administration had previously suggested that the Palestinian Authority, which currently governs the West Bank, be installed in Gaza. But the Palestinian Authority and especially its president, Mahmoud Abbas, are unpopular among Palestinians.
Gallant did not offer specifics about what a Palestinian-led government would look like, beyond that it be led by “local non-hostile actors,” or how it could maintain its authority.
Most of the proposals from Israel and the U.S. say that Hamas should not be allowed to govern Gaza in the future, after the militant group’s devastating Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which left 1,200 dead and hundreds kidnapped.