Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for encouraging what he described as “voluntary migration” of residents of the Gaza Strip and finding countries ready to receive them.
In an interview with Israeli Channel 12, Smotrich, known for his extremist statements, said that Gaza “will not remain a hotbed for two million people who want to destroy the State of Israel. We want to encourage voluntary immigration.”
The right-wing minister, who leads the extremist “Jewish Home” party, added that Tel Aviv must find countries willing to receive the residents of Gaza.
Smotrich added, “We have to stay in Gaza for a long time, and I encourage radical change in the Strip,” expressing his refusal for the Palestinian Authority to take control of the Gaza Strip.
He said that he supports a complete change in the reality in Gaza, by holding a discussion on settlement there.
During Israel’s war on Gaza, Smotrich made controversial statements that received disapproving and disapproving reactions, such as describing the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as Nazis, and calling for the establishment of buffer zones around settlements and roads and preventing Arabs from entering them. He also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant to stop the season. Palestinian olive harvest in the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich belongs to the far-right camp, a number of whose members made racist statements against the Palestinians during the past weeks, the most prominent of which was Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu’s speech about his support for bombing the Gaza Strip with a nuclear bomb.
Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip that has left, to date, 21,672 martyrs and 56,165 injured, most of them women and children, in addition to massive destruction of infrastructure and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.