Palestinians gather around a destroyed vehicle on a street after an Israeli military strike.
Israel has plans ready to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but is waiting for the United States to figure out where to take them, the defense minister has said.
“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” Defense Minister Israel Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli government “is organized and prepared to get them out, by sea, by air, by every way possible,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump, at the start of his second term, stunned much of the world by calling for all two million Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip.
Trump spoke of developing the Mediterranean territory, devastated by Israeli bombardment since the 2023 attack by Hamas, into a luxury resort destination.
Trump walked back the idea following strong pushback including from Egypt, the only country other than Israel to border Gaza.
The proposal was also condemned by Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land would recall the “Nakba”, or catastrophe -- their mass displacement during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Katz, known for his outspoken remarks, said that Trump had only “frozen” the idea as he looks for countries to take in Palestinians, as Egypt is not an option.
“The plan hasn’t been cancelled; it is being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there is no other solution for everyone’s good,” he said.
“But for it to happen, we need the U.S. When will we get their approval? Whenever it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its obligations” under the ceasefire, he said.
Katz, without citing his source, said 80 percent of people in Gaza wanted to leave but that Hamas was preventing them.
