Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who previously made headlines with a series of provocations, urged illegal Israeli settlers to settle in Gaza as he said Palestinians, who have been already devastated by relentless Israeli attacks and an inhumane blockade but refused to leave despite the violence, should be evicted from their homes.
"We must promote a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza's residents," Israel's firebrand National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said Monday.
Israel unilaterally withdrew the last of its troops and settlers 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 to the territory since the current war broke out on Oct. 7.
But Ben-Gvir argued that the eviction of Palestinians and the re-establishment of illegal 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.
Hamas dismissed Ben-Gvir's proposal as a "daydream."
"You will not find a way to implement it in the face of our resilient, steadfast Palestinian people and their heroic resistance," the Palestinian resistance group said in a statement.
Ben-Gvir's comment came the day after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for the return of illegal Israeli settlers to Gaza, equally saying Israel should "encourage" the territory's approximately 2.4 million Palestinians to leave.
Smotrich said that for Israel to "control the territory militarily for a long time, we need a civilian presence."
Both Ben Gvir and Smotrich live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, considered illegal under international law.
Hamas on Sunday had also condemned Smotrich's comments as a "vile mockery and a war crime."
Israel's ongoing aerial attacks and ground invasion in Gaza have killed at least 21,978 people in the blockaded enclave, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry.
With incessant Israeli attacks targeting civilian infrastructure, 85% of people in the besieged Gaza Strip have been internally displaced, according to the United Nations.
Israel has escalated its ground war in Gaza sharply since just before Christmas despite public pleas from its closest ally the United States to scale the campaign down in the closing weeks of the year.
The main focus of fighting is now in central areas south of the wetlands that bisect the Strip, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out as their tanks advance.
Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts of central Gaza were heading south or west Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.
Virtually all residents have been driven from their homes at least once and many forced to flee several times. Only a handful of hospitals are still functioning.
