Israel Awaits Trump Green Light to Expel Gazans

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel is "organised and prepared" to remove the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip and is waiting only for the United States to approve it and to find somewhere to put them.

"There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration," Katz told a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The government, he said, is "organised and prepared to get them out — by sea, by air, by every way possible."

Forced displacement of civilians from occupied territory is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

What Katz Actually Said

Katz framed American backing as the missing piece — not Israeli capability, and not Israeli will.

"Every country that is willing to take them in wants American backing," he said, according to The Guardian. "Trump has not cancelled this at the moment. He has frozen it."

Asked when that approval might come, Katz said: "Whenever it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its obligations" under the ceasefire.

He said the plan "is being discussed all the time, including now, and I think there is no other solution in the end that is in everyone's interest." He singled out Egypt, which he said has lobbied Washington against the forced removal of Gaza's population.

Katz also claimed 80 percent of people in Gaza want to leave and that Hamas is stopping them. He cited no source for that figure.