Israeli official says Gaza will be “entirely destroyed,” Palestinians “will start to leave in great numbers”

Israel’s far-right Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday that a victory for Israel in Gaza would mean the Palestinian territory being “entirely destroyed” before its inhabitants depart for other countries.

“Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to… the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” the firebrand top official said at a conference on Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel’s plan to seize control of the Gaza Strip has sparked renewed fears, but for many of the territory’s residents, the most immediate existential threat remains the specter of famine amid a months-long Israeli blockade on all goods entering the enclave, which is home to more than 2 million people.

The plan to expand military operations, approved by Israel’s security cabinet late Sunday night, includes holding territories in the besieged Gaza Strip and moving the population south “for their protection,” according to Israeli officials.

But Gaza residents told the AFP news agency that they did not expect the new offensive would make any significant changes to the already dire humanitarian situation in the small coastal territory.

“Israel has not stopped the war, the killing, the bombing, the destruction, the siege, and the starvation — every day — so how can they talk about expanding military operations?” Awni Awad, 39, told AFP.

Awad, who lives in a tent in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis after being displaced by Israeli evacuation orders, said that his situation was already “catastrophic and tragic.”

“I call on the world to witness the famine that grows and spreads every day,” he said.

The U.N.’s World Food Program in late April said it had depleted all its foods stocks in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade on all supplies since March 2.

Aya al-Skafy, a resident of Gaza City, told AFP her baby died because of malnutrition and medicine shortages last week.

“She was four months old and weighed 2.8 kilograms (6.2 pounds), which is very little. Medicine was not available,” she said. “Due to severe malnutrition, she suffered from blood acidity, liver and kidney failure, and many other complications. Her hair and nails also fell out due to malnutrition.”

Umm Hashem al-Saqqa, another Gaza City resident, fears her 5-year-old son might face a similar fate, but is powerless to do anything about it.

“Hashem suffers from iron deficiency anemia. He is constantly pale and lacks balance, and is unable to walk due to malnutrition,” she told AFP. “There is no food, no medicine, and no nutritional supplements. The markets are empty of food, and the government clinics and pharmacies have nothing.”

Israeli officials have denied a hunger crisis in Gaza,

Gaza City resident Mohammed al-Shawa, 65, said that Israel’s new military roadmap changes little as it already controls most of Gaza.

“The Israeli announcement about expanding military operations in Gaza is just talk for the media, because the entire Gaza Strip is occupied, and there is no safe area in Gaza,” he said.

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairscb estimates that 69% of Gaza has now been either incorporated into one of Israel’s buffer zones, or is subject to evacuation orders.

That number rises to 100% in the southern governorate of Rafah, where over 230,000 people lived before the war but which has now been entirely declared a no-go zone.

“There is no food, no medicine, and the announcement of an aid distribution plan is just to distract the world and mislead global public opinion,” Shawa said, referring to reports of a new Israeli plan for humanitarian aid delivery that has yet to be implemented.

“The reality is that Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza by bombing, shooting, or through starvation and denial of medical treatment,” he said.

Israeli officials consistently blame Hamas, which has long been designated a terrorist group by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, for all the suffering in Gaza, accusing it of stealing humanitarian aid for its own purposes, which the group denies.

Israel’s hardline Minister of Defense Israel Katz said in mid-April, about a month into the blockade, that the policy aimed at pressuring Hamas to capitulate and release the hostages would not change.  

“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” he said. “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”

That was followed on April 23 by a flat denial from the Israeli Foreign Ministry of any hunger crisis in Gaza whatsoever.

“Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza,” ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a statement posted on social media, rejecting accusations that Israel was using food as a weapon of collective punishment against Gaza’s civilian population.

“According to Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a side is not obliged to allow in aid if it is ‘likely to assist the military or economic efforts of the enemy,'” Marmorstein said. “Hamas hijacked the humanitarian aid to rebuild its terror machine.”

Smotrich praised the new plan for Gaza on Monday and evoked a proposal previously floated by President Trump to displace the territory’s residents elsewhere.

He said he would push for the plan’s completion until “Hamas is defeated, Gaza is fully occupied, and Trump’s historical plan is implemented, with Gaza refugees resettled in other countries.”