Condemnation of Displacement Calls
In a joint statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the ministers said, “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 reaffirmed their “unequivocal rejection and condemnation” of any attempts or plans to displace Palestinians, either within or outside the Occupied Palestinian Territory, regardless of the stated justification.
They warned that turning calls for forced displacement into official policy or concrete measures to uproot Palestinians would have serious regional consequences, and said such actions would directly challenge international efforts to achieve peace, including US President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict.
The ministers stressed that Gaza is an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and called for preserving Palestinian territorial unity across Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
US Denies Forced Displacement
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told reporters on Saturday that there is no plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza after Israeli ministers floated proposals for mass removal.
Huckabee said, “I can tell you categorically there is no plan of the Israelis to displace people out of Gaza against their will,” while speaking in Turmus Ayya, a Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He added, “Nobody is suggesting that there will be forced displacement. The Israelis are not. The Americans are certainly not,” and described it as a “disgrace” to “incarcerate” Palestinians in Gaza.
The comments came after Ben-Gvir outlined a seven-year plan for removing Gaza’s population through what he described as “voluntary emigration,” and after Defence Minister Israel Katz said there was “no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration.”
Israel is to hold a general election on October 27, with the debate over Gaza’s future unfolding alongside the diplomatic and political dispute over displacement proposals.
Regional and UN Stakes
They also rejected efforts to “erase the Palestinian cause or undermine the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” and reaffirmed support for Palestinians remaining on their land.
In a separate condemnation, the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the Israeli statements constitute “ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law, and a crime against humanity that warrants accountability before the relevant international judicial bodies.”
Cheikh Ahmed warned that the danger of the plans to uproot Palestinians directly threatens regional and international peace and security and undermines international efforts to achieve peace based on the two-state solution.
He called for completing the stages of implementing the peace plan under Security Council Resolution 2803, including achieving a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces, and achieving peace based on the two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.