Don’t let Israel forcefully deport Palestinians
Israel's genocide in Gaza has now been going on for over 600 days. The Israeli government's larger vision is clear: erase the demography of Gaza and all of Occupied Palestine, and seize the geography. The intentions have been demonstrated by Israel through both actions and words. Its finance minister recently said the government was planning to "apply sovereignty" to the West Bank, Occupied Palestine in the near future, and within half a year, the population of Gaza would be "concentrated" in a "humanitarian zone," essentially a fenced-off piece of land in the destroyed Gaza Strip.
So the genocidal regime's plan goes like this: use evacuation orders and intense bombardment to trap Palestinians in Gaza in a concentration camp, then starve them there to a state of hopelessness so that they want to leave themselves. And then they will claim Palestine from Palestinians. We have seen this before during the Nakba in 1948 and the Six-Day War in 1967.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Israel's latest mission is executing an arrangement and threatening the people of Gaza—manipulating them into leaving on their own "will" through the shutdown Israeli border. Earlier in March, its Defence Minister Israel Katz released a video statement warning Palestinians in Gaza, "Take the advice of the US president. Return the hostages and eliminate Hamas, and other options will open for you—including going to other places in the world for those who wish. The alternative is complete destruction and devastation."
Two bordering nations, Egypt and Jordan, supporting Palestinian statehood, have rejected the proposition of "taking in" Palestinian refugees in order to support the establishment of Palestinian statehood. Following that, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the wing in Israel's defence ministry that is responsible for overseeing "civilian matters in Gaza," is now executing the heinous scheme to push out Palestinian Gazans through the Israeli border. In March, the security cabinet launched "Voluntary Emigration Bureau for Gaza residents interested in relocating to third countries" to facilitate this goal with COGAT, which blocked 3,000 trucks of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza through that same border for 11 weeks to starve the children in Gaza to death. The images of their skeletal bodies are being circulated all throughout social media as I write this.
Since the development of this "voluntary exit plan," the Palestinian citizens in Gaza—young, old, injured, and starving—have received messages from Israeli numbers, including law firms based in Tel Aviv, offering them paperwork to "safely" travel out of Gaza. News reports have revealed that Israeli agencies are persuading Gazans to give them "extensive assistance," to travel to Ramon Airport in Israel from where they are. In reality, they are being deported. Israel's Interior Minister Moshe Arbel said on April 7 that Palestinians had been deported to various destinations in at least 16 flights by then. The term "deportation" implies they will not be allowed to return, further cementing that the goal of this policy is to simply empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians.
Israel's rationale for "voluntary exit" under the premise of "humanitarian assistance" also collapses under international law. As upheld by international tribunals, particularly the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, "It is impermissible to use forced displacement as a response to a disaster that one has created."
It has come to our knowledge that some entities—including in parts of the world that have demonstrated solidarity to Palestinians—are knowingly or unknowingly helping Israel expel Palestinians from Gaza under initiatives that appear humane on the surface. We must not fall into this trap after seeing with our own eyes what Israel has done to the Palestinians in Gaza over more than 600 days.
We must understand that "helping" Palestinians by hosting them as refugees forced out through the border of Israel undermines the Palestinian cause. I appeal to the people of conscience in Bangladesh as well as the decision-makers to not allow such heinous acts to take place under the pretext of protecting Palestinian lives in the Gaza Strip. Bangladesh should not be an alternative refuge for pushed-out, exploited citizens in Gaza under any circumstances. Israel's deceitful plan has also been criticised by UN officials who emphasise the Palestinians' right to live in their own land, and warn that forced migration is directly fostering Israel's vision to annihilate Gaza. It is imperative that the world realises that, especially the people of Bangladesh, who have set standards of humanity by unwaveringly standing beside Palestine throughout its history and shown historic solidarity for the Palestinians during Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Yousef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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