It is currently estimated that the bodies of thousands of Palestinians murdered by the Israeli regime lie under the rubble of Gaza. As rescue and relief workers struggle to reach them and give them a proper burial, the situation above seems to be moving in a direction that may lead to this never being achieved. Israel is becoming pretty much unambiguous in its desire to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of its rightful, indigenous inhabitants. Israel’s defence minister said last week that his government had plans to remove Palestinians from Gaza but was waiting for US approval and its national security minister said the plan aimed to remove 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of the roughly two million residents over the following six years. Needless to say, this planned expulsion is entirely illegal. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAEs, Qatar, Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkiye have rightly condemned the plans to forcibly expelling Palestinians from their land and said that such measures directly challenge US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza conflict.
However, illegality has never before stopped Israel from doing what it wants. Nor has the US been able to restrain Israel, at least not in any meaningful way, and appears to have blundered into a self-damaging war with Iran on the Zionist state’s behalf. The ceasefire deal that was brokered by Trump has been consistently ignored by the Israelis, who have killed over 1300 Palestinians in the Strip since the October ceasefire. The latest additions to this grisly total, as of writing, came this past Sunday when Israeli strikes reportedly killed a man and his eight-year-old. What threat does a man and his daughter pose? When the goal is ethnic cleansing, one supposes mere existence is transformed into a threat. And while plans for forced expulsion in Gaza still appear to be at a preliminary stage, they appear to have reached a more advanced level in the West Bank.
A UN human rights report published last week says Israeli security forces forcibly displaced the entire Palestinian populations of three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank in January and February 2025 and are still preventing their return, in violation of international law. This accounts for about 33,000 people, all forcibly displaced by Israel’s ‘Iron Wall’ operation, which was launched early last year. This comes amidst an expansion and uptick in Israeli settler attacks in areas under direct Palestinian control. All of this is happening in an area that Israel illegally occupies. Anyone with any reason should be able to see what is going on here and how detrimental it is to peace in the region and the world. This includes the US. The Trump administration must understand that Israel is the main obstacle to any peaceful resolution in the Middle East and by continuing to let its transgressions go unpunished, it is destabilising the region. This is to say nothing of just how immoral the backing of a genocidal power and illegal occupier is.
