The Israeli Government is negotiating with several countries, including the Republic of Congo, for the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza when the war ends, according to the online newspaper Times of Israel, citing a senior Israeli official.
While the conflict with Hamas in Gaza continues – which has lasted almost three months -, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Executive is launching plans for what it calls “voluntary” migration of part of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Strip who want to leave, according to that medium.
Given this, the authorities would be having contacts with several countries that could accept the arrival of thousands of Gazans. “The Republic of Congo will be willing to receive immigrants and we are in talks with other countries,” a source who is part of the Security Cabinet told the Times of Israel.
The extreme humanitarian crisis derived from the war in Gaza leaves its population in an unsustainable situation, with almost no food, drinking water, medical supplies or fuel due to the Israeli siege that limits the entry of humanitarian aid to a trickle. The majority of hospitals are operating at their limit or out of service, without electricity due to a shortage of gasoline and with a lack of medical supplies or many drugs to treat the wounded and sick.
Since the start of the war on October 7, when Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, the Israeli offensive on the enclave has left at least 22,300 dead and more than 57,200 wounded. Thousands of missing Palestinians are also estimated to have died, their bodies lying under rubble of destroyed buildings.
The Israeli Army’s attacks on Gaza have left a landscape of unprecedented devastation inside the enclave, while Israeli far-right groups and ministers of the Government itself have openly requested in recent days the departure of Gazans to make way for the resettlement of the coastal enclave with Israeli settlers. The Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, made statements along these lines.
Until now, a very small part of the Gazan population has been able to leave the Strip via Egypt, but this country – the only one that borders Gaza beyond Israel – refuses to give access to large numbers of Gazans for fear that Israel will later not allow them. allowed to return and have to absorb a large number of refugees.
The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has condemned the comments of two Israeli ministers who have advocated the displacement of the Palestinian population from Gaza so that the Jewish settlers who left the Strip in 2005 can return. , statements that he called “inflammatory” and “irresponsible.”
“I firmly condemn the inflammatory and irresponsible statements of Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich in which they slander the Palestinian population of Gaza and ask for a plan for their emigration,” Borrell wrote on his X account (formerly Twitter).
The reaction responds to the statements of the Minister of National Security of the Israeli Government, Itamar Ben Gvir, and the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, settlers themselves and two of the main far-right ministers of the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, who insist on the need to that the Palestinians leave the Strip to recolonize the territory.
“Forced displacements are strictly prohibited and constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Words matter,” Borrell insisted in his message on social networks.