Israel Should Halve Gaza's Population, Says Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel should occupy the Gaza Strip and halve its Palestinian population by encouraging "voluntary emigration".

"We can and must conquer the Gaza Strip, we should not be afraid of that word," Smotrich said late Monday at an event organised by the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

"There is no doubt that in Gaza -- with the encouragement of voluntary emigration -- there is here, in my opinion, a unique opportunity that is opening up with the new administration," the minister said, referring to Donald Trump's recent re-election.

"We can create a situation in which, within two years, the population of Gaza will be reduced by half," Smotrich said.

Smotrich leads the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party and has courted controversy with his comments in recent months.

In August, he triggered international uproar by suggesting it would be justified to starve two million Gazans to free Israeli hostages in the Palestinian territory.

On November 14, a Human Rights Watch report alleged that Israel's mass displacement of Gazans amounted to a "crime against humanity", a claim which Israel dismissed as "completely false".

According to HRW, "Israel's actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing" in the areas where Palestinians will not be allowed to return.

The European Union's outgoing foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has previously condemned Israel's actions in Gaza. "The words 'ethnic cleansing' are increasingly used to describe what is going on in north Gaza," Borrell said in a social media post on November 11.

Smotrich and fellow far-right cabinet member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, previously sparked outcry in January with "voluntary transfer" plans for Gaza's 2.4 million population.

The United States at the time rejected their "irresponsible" statements.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and maintained troops and settlements there until 2005.

After its withdrawal, it imposed a crippling blockade on the territory and, since the start of the current war, a near-total siege.

Militant group Hamas seized sole power in Gaza in 2007 after ousting loyalists of the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the return of Jewish settlers to Gaza, despite support for the idea from Smotrich and other members of his hard-right ruling coalition.

The Gaza war began with Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 44,249 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

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