Palestine weekly: Israeli ministers push for depopulation of Gaza

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkFar-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (centre), who has proposed the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, waves as he visits the Mahaneh Yehudah Market in West Jerusalem, September 4, 2026 [File: Abir Sultan/EPA]By Al Jazeera StaffPublished On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026Far-right Israeli ministers began more forcefully advocating the wholesale removal of Palestinians in Gaza last week, offering timelines and government mechanisms to conduct illegal forced expulsions while displacement, demolitions and killings continued across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told a conference on Wednesday that removing Palestinians from Gaza is “the only solution”, saying Israel is prepared to do it “by sea, by air and by every way possible”, and that US President Donald Trump has merely “frozen” – not cancelled – his support for the idea.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Israeli flags become the latest weapon of settlers in West Bank dominationlist 2 of 3Palestinian farmers battle settler sabotage to save Hebron crops, livestocklist 3 of 3Israel’s Katz threatens ‘full-scale war’ against PA after settler stabbedend of listThen, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled a seven-year plan, branded “Disengagement 710”, to remove Gaza’s roughly two million residents through what he called “voluntary emigration”.Ben-Gvir added that, if re-elected, he would establish a Migration Ministry to expel Palestinians.The US State Department said it “does not support any plan or proposal for the forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer of the population of Gaza” – but stopped short of directly condemning Katz or Ben-Gvir. Gaza: Rising death toll amid airstrikesGaza’s death toll has continued climbing through near-daily strikes. An Israeli special forces raid near Gaza City’s American hospital on Tuesday killed at least four Palestinians, including two children and a woman, ending with the capture of Moin al-Arabeed, described by Israel as the 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 killed one person.On Thursday, two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, were shot dead near Beit Lahia after Israel said they had crossed into an Israeli-controlled area, while a separate drone strike killed a man near a church compound in Gaza City’s Remal neighbourhood.Strikes continued through the week’s end: On Sunday alone, Israel attacked near a school in Gaza City, wounding several, 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 in Gaza were killed including three-year-old Saadi Ghalia, who was killed when an artillery shell struck a school in Deir el-Balah sheltering displaced people.By Monday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 73,658 people have been killed and 174,622 wounded since October 2023, after 160 additional deaths were certified and added to the casualty figures. Of those, more than 1,340 have been killed since the October 2025 Israeli-Hamas “ceasefire”. The recovery of bodies has slowly continued alongside the killings.Families in northern Gaza held funerals on Sunday for around 100 people, including 60 children, whose remains were pulled 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 his teams could recover an estimated 8,000 more bodies still under the rubble within 90 days if given proper heavy equipment, but warned that without it, “this work will continue for years”. Between 10,000 and 14,000 people remain missing under Gaza’s rubble.In the strip, humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate without sufficient aid getting in. The World Health Organization warned that water contamination in Gaza has nearly tripled since January. The Palestinian Water Authority reported all five of Gaza’s wastewater plants have shut down entirely, with roughly 55,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage discharged daily.West Bank: Demolitions and villages under siegeMeanwhile, Israeli forces carried out demolitions this week in the West Bank. In the community of Khirbet al-Tabban in Masafer Yatta, those demolitions were absolute – demolishing all 12 homes left 70 people, including 30 children, homeless.“It’s wiping the village off the face of the earth,” council head Nidal Younis said. Residents, he added, intend to rebuild.Israeli forces also destroyed four water wells and several greenhouses in nearby Beit Ummar in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, causing an estimated $60,000 in losses, and demolished a home in Nahalin in Bethlehem governorate.Around Jenin, the bulldozing of hundreds of farmers’ trees continued along the Arraba-Yabad and Jenin-Nablus roads, part of six military orders issued in August to clear vegetation from across four Jenin-area villages, according to to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.Relatives mourn two Palestinians killed in al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah, following an Israeli settler attack and subsequent Israeli army raid, at the Ramallah government hospital in the occupied West Bank on September 2, 2026 [AFP]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 the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, according to Wafa, and authorities forced a Palestinian man in the city’s Jabal al-Mukaber area to demolish his home.Despite all of the land and property destruction, last week’s most sustained violence centred on al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah. Settlers and soldiers raided the village on the evening of Wednesday after accusing residents of stealing livestock.Snipers took rooftop positions and opened fire as residents tried to stop settlers 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 Nasan was shot in the back.In the days after, mourners were beaten and pepper-sprayed and their vehicle stolen, with an ambulance also attacked.Wafa also reported late on Sunday that Israeli settlers killed Omar Tubasi, 20, and injured three people 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 that was enforced for Palestinians, not the settlers who 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 tried to stab an officer.