JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans, after Israel expressed commitment to a US proposal to take over the Palestinian territory and expel its residents.
“Defense Minister Israel Katz held a meeting today (Monday) on the voluntary departure of Gaza residents, at the end of which he decided that a directorate for the voluntary departure of Gaza residents would be established within the ministry of defense,” a ministry statement said.
Earlier this month, Katz said he had ordered the army to formulate a plan to allow Palestinians to leave Gaza, adding that he welcomed “Trump’s bold plan, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various places around the world.”
An initial plan presented during the meeting on Monday “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land,” the statement added.
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed to US President Donald Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza,” also promising that after the war, “there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority” ruling the territory.
Trump’s repeated proposal for a US “takeover” of Gaza and the resettlement of Palestinians in other countries such as Egypt and Jordan lacks detail but has triggered widespread international outrage.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza Strip’s deadliest war and resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,284 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.
More than 15 months of war destroyed or damaged more than 69 percent of Gaza’s buildings, displaced almost the entire population, and triggered widespread hunger, according to the United Nations.

LAAYOUNE: France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati became on Monday the first French official to make a formal visit to the Western Sahara, a sign of Paris’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory.
“This is the first time that a French minister has come to the southern provinces,” Dati told AFP, using Morocco’s name for the area, a former Spanish colony controlled by Rabat but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati described the visit as “historic.”
The United Nations considers Western Sahara a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
Dati, accompanied by Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, launched a French cultural mission in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city.
She promised to open the territory’s first French culture center to “benefit children in the region, but also teachers, schools, students and teacher trainers.”
In Dakhla, the Western Sahara’s second city some 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Laayoune, Dati said she is set to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema and audiovisual art.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining ties between Rabat and Paris.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Morocco’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
The turnabout marked by Macron’s statement drew a strong reaction from Algiers.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and had already cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
Macron renewed French support for Morocco’s plan in October, pledging investments and a “strong and exceptional partnership.”
Also in October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” for the Western Sahara dispute.