Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that President Donald Trump’s proposal to remove all Palestinians from Gaza and build refugee cities in other Arab states was slowly coming together.
Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism party, asserted that a plan to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians was now in the works. “This plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination with the (US) administration,” he told an event in the Israeli Knesset on Sunday. “This has the potential to create a historic change in the Middle East and for the state of Israel.”
Last week, Smotrich traveled to Washington to meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Under the Joe Biden administration, the Israeli finance chief was effectively barred from visiting the US following his calls to annex the occupied West Bank, and statements that it was “moral and justified” for Israel to starve all Gazans to death.
Trump has said that he wants to “clean out” and “take over” Gaza in order to create the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The president explained that the proposal would call for the permanent removal and resettlement of the Palestinians.
Smotrich, who has repeatedly called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, argued to the Knesset that Trump’s proposal presented “an opportunity to bring an end to the conflict” with the Palestinians. He added, “until today, we have been dragging this along for 76 years, searching for solutions… With the current [US] administration, we will do much more.”
The finance minister explained the Palestinians could be rounded up and removed in six months to a year. “Just to give you an idea – if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months,” he said. “If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes.”
Last month, Smotrich said that the project of expelling Palestinians would start slow but accelerate over time: “It is a process that is going to start in the coming weeks, even if it starts at a slower pace, bit by bit it will gather speed and intensify.”
