Defense Minister Israel Katz says plans to facilitate the mass emigration of Palestinians from Gaza remain under discussion and have merely been “frozen” by US President Donald Trump, while speaking at a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
“In the end, there is no real solution for Gaza without this migration,” he says at the event, adding that “80 percent want to emigrate. We are checking this in all kinds of surveys. Hamas isn’t letting them and there are no countries in the world absorbing them.”
In February 2025, weeks after taking office, Trump advocated relocating Gaza’s population, prompting Israel to establish a Defense Ministry directorate tasked with facilitating what officials termed “voluntary emigration.”
But Trump later abandoned the proposal amid overwhelming international opposition and a lack of countries willing to receive Gazans. The Gaza peace plan put in place under the current ceasefire pledges instead to “encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.”
But Katz says the plan is still on the table.
“The emigration directorate is organized to take out [Gazans] to the extent it will be possible,” he says, “by sea, by air and by any means to do it.” He adds that Egypt, which borders Gaza, “is not prepared for it to take place through its territory.”
The main issue, Katz says, is that “every country that is willing [to take people in] wants American backing.”
Katz claims, “At the moment, Trump has not canceled it; he has frozen it. All the Arab countries came to him, because of the pressure over this issue, and said: We’ll give you whatever you want — investments. We’ll give you the disarmament of Hamas in exchange for freezing it.”
In June, Israeli security officials were reported to be seeking to revive the moribund plan and to have it rebranded in an effort to soften international opposition.
Katz continues, “It hasn’t been canceled. It is being discussed all the time, even now. And I think that ultimately there is no other solution, for everyone’s benefit. But for that to happen, we need the United States, and the moment will come.”
Asked when that moment will be, Katz says, “when it becomes clear that Hamas is not fulfilling its commitment[s]” under the US plan for the Strip.
“Then we will get a green light to advance militarily, territorially, and in other areas as well,” the minister says.
