Palestinian officials and Hamas on Friday denounced calls by two far-right Israeli ministers to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, urging Arab and Muslim countries to oppose the proposal and warning that forced displacement would violate international law.
"Escalating statements by ministers in the Israeli government regarding the continued adoption of plans to displace the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip represent an extremely dangerous development," Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement.
He called on "Arab and Islamic countries to take serious and unified action to confront these plans and adopt effective positions and measures to thwart them."
The speaker of the Palestinian National Council Rawhi Fattouh said the remarks by Katz and Ben-Gvir "reveal a systematic project of ethnic cleansing,” according to a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Ben-Gvir on Thursday unveiled a plan calling for the displacement of 1.86 million Palestinians from Gaza over seven years through the creation of a dedicated ministry to oversee the process.
