Weekly Briefing: Israeli Ministers Advance Gaza Depopulation Agenda

Far-right Israeli ministers escalated their advocacy for the forced removal of Gaza’s population last week, presenting timelines and proposed government mechanisms for what they described as illegal mass expulsions, even as displacement, demolitions, and killings persisted across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz declared at a Wednesday conference that expelling Palestinians from Gaza is “the only solution,” stating the country is prepared to carry it out “by sea, by air and by every way possible,” while noting that US President Donald Trump has only “frozen”—not abandoned—his backing for the proposal.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir subsequently unveiled a seven-year plan dubbed “Disengagement 710,” aiming to remove Gaza’s approximately two million residents through what he termed “voluntary emigration.”

Ben-Gvir added that, if re-elected, he would create a dedicated Migration Ministry to carry out the expulsion of Palestinians.

The US State Department stated that it “does not support any plan or proposal for the forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer of the population of Gaza,” though it stopped short of directly condemning either Katz or Ben-Gvir.

Gaza: Rising death toll amid airstrikes

Gaza’s death toll has continued to rise amid near-daily Israeli strikes. A special forces raid near Gaza City’s American hospital on Tuesday killed at least four Palestinians, including two children and a woman, and ended with the capture of Moin al-Arabeed, whom Israel identified as head of Hamas’s internal security. A drone strike killed a child in Jabalia refugee camp on Wednesday, the same day an attack on a tent in Khan Younis claimed one life.

On Thursday, two Palestinians—including a 13-year-old—were shot dead near Beit Lahia after Israel said they had entered an Israeli-controlled zone, while a separate drone strike killed a man near a church compound in Gaza City’s Remal neighbourhood.

Strikes continued through the weekend: On Sunday alone, Israel attacked near a school in Gaza City, wounding several people, and a separate drone strike on a car near Gaza City’s Hamid intersection killed Youssef Akila and his young daughter, Wafaa.

Before dawn on Monday, at least five more Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including three-year-old Saadi Ghalia, who died when an artillery shell struck a school in Deir el-Balah that was sheltering displaced people.

By Monday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 73,658 people had been killed and 174,622 wounded since October 2023, after 160 additional deaths were certified and added to the official tally. More than 1,340 of those fatalities occurred since the October 2025 Israeli-Hamas “ceasefire”.

Body recovery efforts have continued slowly amid the ongoing killings.

Families in northern Gaza held funerals on Sunday for around 100 people, including 60 children, whose remains were recovered from the rubble of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood—many of them members of the extended Malaka family.

Gaza civil defence chief Raed al-Dahshan told Al Jazeera that his teams could recover an estimated 8,000 bodies still buried under rubble within 90 days if provided with proper heavy equipment, but warned that without it, “this work will continue for years.” Between 10,000 and 14,000 people remain missing beneath Gaza’s rubble.

Humanitarian conditions in the strip continue to deteriorate as aid remains insufficient. The World Health Organization warned that water contamination in Gaza has nearly tripled since January, while the Palestinian Water Authority reported that all five of Gaza’s wastewater plants have shut down entirely, discharging roughly 55,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage daily.

West Bank: Demolitions and villages under siege

Israeli forces carried out demolitions across the West Bank this week. In Khirbet al-Tabban in Masafer Yatta, the demolitions were total—wiping out all 12 remaining homes and leaving 70 people, including 30 children, homeless.

“It’s wiping the village off the face of the earth,” said council head Nidal Younis, adding that residents intend to rebuild.

Israeli forces also destroyed four water wells and several greenhouses in nearby Beit Ummar in Hebron, causing an estimated $60,000 in losses, and demolished a home in Nahalin in the Bethlehem governorate.

Around Jenin, bulldozers continued uprooting hundreds of farmers’ trees along the Arraba-Yabad and Jenin-Nablus roads, part of six military orders issued in August to clear vegetation across four Jenin-area villages, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

In occupied East Jerusalem’s al-Bustan neighbourhood, community representative Fakhri Abu Diab said municipal bulldozers demolished a four-apartment building—the 60th demolition there since October 2023. On Monday morning, another home was demolished in Beit Hanina, according to Wafa, while authorities forced a Palestinian man in the Jabal al-Mukaber area to demolish his own home.

Despite the widespread land and property destruction, last week’s most sustained violence centred on al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah. Settlers and soldiers raided the village on Wednesday evening after accusing residents of stealing livestock.

Snipers took rooftop positions and opened fire as residents tried to stop settlers from stealing sheep, killing Khalil Abu Alia, 16, and Mohammad Nassan, 19.

The Israeli military told the Times of Israel that troops were “securing the retrieval of livestock belonging to Israeli civilians” when a “violent riot” broke out and soldiers “fired at key instigators.” Eyewitnesses said Nassan was shot in the back.

In the days that followed, mourners were beaten and pepper-sprayed, their vehicle was stolen, and an ambulance was attacked.

Wafa also reported late on Sunday that Israeli settlers killed Omar Tubasi, 20, and injured three others when they raided and opened fire on the village of Hajja, east of Qalqilya governorate in the occupied West Bank.

Elsewhere, settlers stormed Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills on Friday, injuring a child. Soldiers who arrived declared the area a closed military zone, enforcing restrictions on Palestinians while the settlers remained.

In Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, a settler wearing a T-shirt bearing the logo of the outlawed Kach movement was filmed atop a Palestinian home declaring “this land is Jewish,” after US Ambassador Mike Huckabee visited the town and called settler violence “a form of terrorism.”

In Qusra, south of Nablus, a month-long siege of three homes continued, with the army initially blocking roughly 100 peace activists from delivering food and medicine. Settlers also stole water tanks and livestock in the Jordan Valley and sabotaged water lines serving a Bedouin encampment near Tayasir in the northern West Bank, according to reports and photos from local Palestinian activists.

In East Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police shot and killed Ibrahim al-Hendi, 33, from Beit Hanina, near Damascus Gate on Friday, claiming he had attempted to stab an officer.

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