Defense minister claims 80% of Palestinians want to leave Gaza, but nobody will take them; PM visits IDF post in Strip, says Israel won’t withdraw from territory it currently holds
Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that plans to facilitate the mass emigration of Palestinians from Gaza remain under discussion and were merely “frozen” by US President Donald Trump, not taken off the table entirely. He discussed the plans, saying Israel would facilitate emigration “by any means,” at a conference hosted by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, at the same time as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to an IDF outpost inside the Gaza Strip and reaffirmed that Israel had no plans to withdraw Katz, in a recorded clip from the conference, claimed that some “80 percent [of Gazans]. want to emigrate,” citing unspecified surveys Israel has conducted, but that the unwillingness of other countries to take them in is a roadblock to implementing this.
“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” Katz insisted. “Hamas isn’t allowing them [to leave], and there are no countries in the world taking them in. President Trump put the issue on the agenda. Now every country needs to take people in — and that’s the big issue.” Should other countries be open to taking in Gazans, Katz said the Israeli government “is organized and prepared to get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible.”
The US embassy referred requests for comment to the State Department in Washington. Trump initially proposed relocating Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million residents in February 2025, prompting Israel to establish a Defense Ministry directorate tasked with facilitating what officials termed “voluntary emigration.” Trump spoke of developing the coastal territory, devastated by the two-year war between Israel and Hamas following the Palestinian terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, into a luxury resort destination.
The possibility sparked strong pushback, including from Egypt, and was condemned by Palestinians themselves. Trump later abandoned the proposal amid international opposition and a lack of countries willing to receive Gazans, and in his October 2025 Gaza peace plan he appeared to walk away from it entirely, pledging instead to “encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.” In June, Israeli security officials were reported to be seeking to revive the moribund plan and to have rebranded it in an effort to soften international opposition. According to Katz, however, Trump did not abandon the plan, but has merely “frozen it” due to pressure from Arab states. (Read More)
