(The Times Of Israel) 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.
Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, has learned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is conducting secret contacts for accepting thousands of immigrants from Gaza with Congo, in addition to other nations.
“Congo will be willing to take in migrants, and we’re in talks with others,” a senior source in the security cabinet said.
Congo has high levels of inequality, and 52.5 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Food Programme.
Meanwhile, Gaza is facing a growing humanitarian crisis amid the Israel-Hamas war, which was sparked on October 7 when thousands of terrorists stormed the border and rampaged through southern Israeli communities, massacring some 1,200 and kidnapping approximately 240 more as hostages in the Strip.
Last Monday, Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting that he is working to facilitate the voluntary migration of Gazans to other countries.
“Our problem is [finding] countries that are willing to absorb Gazans, and we are working on it,” he said.
The prime minister was responding to Likud MK Danny Danon, who claimed that “the world is already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration,” though the idea has been roundly rejected by the international community.
The far-right Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, respectively, have backed the plans for migration.
On Tuesday, the US State Department called out Smotrich and Ben Gvir for advocating the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza, slamming their rhetoric as “inflammatory and irresponsible.” Smotrich dismissed the comments on Wednesday, claiming that over 70 percent of Israelis support the idea of “encouraging voluntary immigration” because “two million people [in Gaza] wake up every morning with the desire to destroy the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu’s office has issued statements in the past publicly insisting that Smotrich and Ben Gvir do not represent government policy on the matter, despite his own comments last week in support of a population transfer.
Ministers and lawmakers from Netanyahu’s Likud have also been advocating the policy.
On Tuesday, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel told Zman that “voluntary migration is the best and most realistic program for the day after the fighting ends.”
On Tuesday, during a conference held in the Knesset to examine possibilities for postwar Gaza, Gamliel said: “At the end of the war, Hamas rule will collapse. There are no municipal authorities; the civilian population will be entirely dependent on humanitarian aid. There will be no work, and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones.”
