RIYADH, SEP 6: Saudi Arabia, among other Arab and Islamic nations, condemned on Sunday statements made by Israeli officials on the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
The Kingdom’s foreign minister joined counterparts from Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt in condemning statements made by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, including proposals for plans and mechanisms aimed at forcibly removing Palestinians from their land.
“Such inflammatory statements and proposals flagrantly violate principles of international law, including international humanitarian law, and pose a direct threat to the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” the ministers said in a joint statement.
They reiterated “their unequivocal rejection” of any attempts or plans to displace the Palestinian people, be it within or outside the occupied territories.
Measures aimed at uprooting Palestinians from their land constitute a “direct challenged to international efforts aimed at achieving peace, foremost among them President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict.”
Far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had laid out a seven-year plan for removing Gaza’s population through “voluntary emigration” during a press conference on Thursday night. He said he would seek the creation of a “ministry in charge of emigration” in the next government.
Ben-Gvir’s comments followed those of Defense Minister Israel Katz, from Netanyahu’s Likud party, who said on Wednesday there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration.”
“We are fully prepared to move them out if it becomes possible — by sea, by air, by every way possible. Egypt is not willing, so it won’t be through them,” he said during an online conference hosted by Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
The foreign ministers said that the only solution to the Palestinian crisis and to achieve a just lasting peace “lies in the implementation of the two-state solution.”
They called on the international community and the United Nations Security Council to shoulder their responsibilities and “firmly confront any attempts to impose a new demographic or geographic reality in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
