‘Cleansing’ Gaza

THE Israeli defence minister has recently confirmed what many across the world already know: the Zionist state seeks to ethnically cleanse the occupied territories of their native Palestinian inhabitants.

Tel Aviv seeks to achieve this reprehensible aim through murder — as witnessed in the Gaza genocide — as well as forced displacement in order to quench its insatiable thirst for other people’s land.

Israel Katz has said his country is ready to depopulate Gaza and only awaits America’s green light. Israel is prepared to “get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible”, he said, contemptuously referring to Gaza’s people as if they were livestock to be transported from one place to another.

He added there was “no real solution” other than the forcible removal of Gaza’s people. In fact, there very much is a solution: Israel must vacate all occupied Palestinian territory and be made to answer for its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

The situation is not much better in the West Bank. Here, the UN says Israel has forcibly displaced the residents of three refugee camps in the occupied territory. Meanwhile, rabid Jewish settlers have unleashed a reign of terror on the West Bank’s Arab population.

It should be remembered that forcible displacement is a war crime, which even the so-called Gaza peace plan prohibits.

Since Israel has clearly said that it only awaits America’s blessings to go ahead with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the Trump administration must unambiguously state its opposition to this criminal plan. In fact, those who should leave occupied Palestinian land are the Zionist military and the Israeli settlers who seek to devour Arab territory.

The Palestinians have faced one Nakba already, violently forced off the land of their forefathers by outsiders. They must not be made to face another catastrophe executed by the Zionist state, and underwritten by its staunch supporters in Washington.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2026