Smotrich: Egypt stands as a barrier against displacing Palestinians from Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister, an extremist settler named Betzalel Smotrich, has undermined Palestinians’ hopes for rebuilding the devastated Gaza Strip, destroyed by Tel Aviv’s genocide over the past three years, in order to force them into exile. In an interview with Channel 14 on Monday, Smotrich admitted the failure of the plan to deport Palestinians from Gaza, noting that Egypt is blocking the deportation plan by refusing to allow them to exit through its territory, in addition to other countries’ refusal to accept them. The minister, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, stated that airlifting Palestinian residents out of the Strip would require the consent of the countries that would host them. He claimed that accepting between 20,000 and 30,000 Palestinians from Gaza in each European country would “solve the problem,” according to his assertion. He added that world countries continue to refuse to allow the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza to their territories, which constitutes an obstacle to this proposal. He considered that the key to deporting Gaza’s residents is to strip them of the hope that the Strip will ever be rebuilt. Smotrich said that if the occupation annexes the area up to the Yellow Line, and Gaza remains small, overcrowded, and destroyed, its residents will understand there is no point in staying there, in his words.