News24 | Hamas rejects Israel minister demand of Gaza annexation as ‘ethnic cleansing against our people’

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, announced the creation of 22 settlements in the West Bank. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

• Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for an annexation of part of Gaza.
• He demanded that Hamas surrender and lay down its weapons.
• The vast majority of Gaza’s population have been displaced at least once during the war.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday called on the government to begin annexing parts of the Gaza Strip if Palestinian militant group Hamas stands by its refusal to lay down its weapons.

The far-right minister, who has vocally opposed striking a deal with Hamas to end the nearly two-year war, presented his plan to “win in Gaza by the end of the year” at a press conference in Jerusalem.

Under Smotrich’s proposal, Hamas would be given an ultimatum to surrender, disarm and release the hostages still held in Gaza since the group’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war.

If Hamas refuses, Smotrich said Israel should annex a section of the territory each week for four weeks, bringing most of the Gaza Strip under full Israeli control.

According to Smotrich, Palestinians would first be told to move south in Gaza, followed by Israel imposing a siege on the territory’s north and centre to defeat any remaining Hamas militants there, and ending with annexation.

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“This can be achieved in three to four months,” he said.

His remarks come as Israeli forces press a major offensive aimed at seizing control of Gaza City - the territory’s largest - despite mounting concern for the fate of Palestinian civilians there.

The vast majority of Gaza’s more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war.

Smotrich in his remarks called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to adopt this plan in full immediately”.

The Palestinian militant group condemned the proposal, saying in a statement that it constituted an “open endorsement of the policy of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing against our people”.

Smotrich is one of several far-right members of Israel’s ruling coalition to have expressed support for re-establishing settlements in the Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew troops and settlers in 2005.

A staunch supporter of the settler movement who himself lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, Smotrich authorised last week a major project in that territory which critics say threatens the territorial integrity of any future Palestinian state.

Smotrich has said that the settlement project in the area known as E1, east of Jerusalem, was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Al Jazeera reported that since announcing plans to invade northern Gaza and expel Palestinians again to the south, Israel attacked displacement shelters in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitoun, according to an investigation by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s verification unit.

Since 13 August, Sanad has found that Israel stepped up the bombardment and shelling of Zeitoun, and often directly hit displacement shelters.

The siege and ongoing violence have compelled thousands of Palestinians to close their tents in the camps and flee further south, according to satellite imagery obtained by Sanad.

The indiscriminate bombardment of civilian homes and displacement shelters is part of a broad pattern of Israeli war tactics that make no distinction between civilians and fighters.

Human rights groups, United Nations experts and numerous legal scholars believe Israel’s nearly two-year war on Gaza amounts to genocide.

Israel’s Western allies - who have long defended it from criticism by claiming it has the “right to defend itself” - are becoming increasingly alarmed at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the enclave.

Many are calling on Israel to end the war and warning that its plan to seize northern Gaza could further exacerbate the suffering of civilians. The mass displacement and bombardment of Zeitoun encapsulate the atrocities resulting from Israel’s invasion.

There are about 11 displacement shelters in Zeitoun, each sheltering 4 000 to 4 500 besieged and hungry Palestinians.

Most live on just 3.2km2, which makes up just 32% of the pre-war size of Zeitoun.

At the start of the war, Israel dug trenches in and around the neighbourhood, claiming it was creating a “buffer zone”, and built the Netzarim Corridor, which has split Gaza into two zones.