Skip to main content

US Condemns Israeli Ministers' Call For Palestinians To Emigrate From Gaza

US Condemns Israeli Ministers' Call For Palestinians To Emigrate From Gaza

"Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land," US official said.

Washington:

The United States on Tuesday denounced controversial comments by two Israeli ministers who said Palestinians should be encouraged to emigrate from Gaza and for Jewish settlers to return to the besieged territory.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington "rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza."

"This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible," added Miller, who reiterated the "clear, consistent, and unequivocal" US position that "Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel."

Ben Gvir, Israel's firebrand national security minister, had called on Monday for promoting "a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza's residents."

Israel unilaterally withdrew the last of its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, ending a presence inside Gaza that began in 1967 but maintaining near complete control over the territory's borders.

The government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not officially suggested it has any plans to evict Gazans or to send Jewish settlers back to the territory since the current war broke out on October 7.

But Ben Gvir argued that the departure of Palestinians and re-establishment of Israeli settlements "is a correct, just, moral and humane solution."

"This is an opportunity to develop a project to encourage Gaza's residents to emigrate to countries around the world," he told a meeting of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit, or "Jewish Power," party.

His comments came the day after Israel's far-right Finance Minister Smotrich also called for the return of settlers to Gaza, equally saying Israel should "encourage" the territory's approximately 2.4 million Palestinians to leave.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war was triggered by Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

After the worst attack in its history, Israel began a relentless bombardment and ground offensive that has killed at least 22,185 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

With heavy combat raging on, 85 percent of people in the besieged Gaza Strip have been internally displaced, according to the United Nations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Adblock test (Why?)



from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/dtKYi6T https://ift.tt/GRgjch7
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

US Defense Chief Austin To Make 'Full Recovery' From Cancer: Doctors

Austin, a 70-year-old career soldier, initially underwent minor surgery to treat cancer on December 22. Washington: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is likely to make a "full recovery" from prostate cancer and his prognosis is "excellent," two doctors said after he was seen at Walter Reed hospital for a follow-up appointment. Austin controversially kept US President Joe Biden in the dark about the cancer diagnosis for weeks, and did not inform either the commander-in-chief or Congress until days after he was hospitalized on January 1 for complications from his treatment. "Secretary Austin was seen today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a scheduled post-prostatectomy surveillance appointment," the doctors said in a statement released by the Pentagon. "He continues to recover well and is expected to make a full recovery. Secretary Austin's prostate cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,...

Republic Day Updates: Macron Chief Guest As Delhi Hosts Parade Amid Dense Fog

Adblock test (Why?) from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/yqj8XDV https://ift.tt/zHpGab4 via IFTTT

North Korea Says It Tested New Strategic Cruise Missile

North Korea test-fired a new generation of strategic cruise missile on Wednesday. (Representational) Seoul: North Korea fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul's military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state. Hours later, North Korea appeared to confirm the firing, saying it had carried out its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, the Pulhwasal-3-31. Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile. "Our military detected several cruise missiles launched by North Korea towards the Yellow Sea at around 7:00 am today," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Cruise...