Attempts to displace Palestinians against law: Experts

Any attempt to permanently displace Palestinians will go against international law and the conduct of "voluntary migration" would also be misleading, experts said.

At a Likud meeting on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said efforts were being made to push for a plan to implement "voluntary migration" of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to other countries, Middle Eastern media outlets cited newspaper Israel Hayom as saying.

Another Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Knesset member and former United Nations ambassador Danny Danon had also said in a radio interview on Monday night that Israel had received inquiries from countries willing to take in refugees from the Gaza Strip.

However, the humanitarian organization The Norwegian Refugee Council warned on Tuesday in a statement that any attempts by Israel to deport and permanently displace Palestinians within and from Gaza "would constitute a serious breach of international law and an atrocity crime".

"This concern follows Israel's forcible transfer of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within Gaza. Palestinians fear further displacement could lead to a refugee crisis like the catastrophic events of 1948, known in Arabic as the 'Nakba'," it said.

It also said Israel's extensive destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, coupled with ongoing bombardment and siege, "has made Gaza unlivable" and could push the population into forced and protracted displacement across the border, "with limited prospects for repatriation".

The Hamas-run Gaza Strip's health ministry said on Wednesday that the conflict with Israel has killed more than 21,000, as Israel continues to pound the besieged territory with airstrikes and shelling.

On the Israeli side, about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on Oct 7.

The World Health Organization said the Gazans are in "grave peril "after more than 11 weeks of fighting, which has left most hospitals in the Palestinian territory out of action and led to "acute hunger".

'Misleading' rhetoric

Abdalfatah Asqool, an international law lecturer at the University of Palestine, told China Daily that the use of "voluntary migration" was "misleading" because the use of "extreme force" to force people to leave their homes and lands "is not a voluntary push for Palestinian migration".

"When we talk about this call from an international law perspective, this call very clearly goes against the international law instruments because no one has the right to force people or even ask people to leave their homes and their lands," Asqool said.

He said countries have the right to not accept Palestinians.

"So when they refuse, they actually do not refuse to accept Palestinians or take in Palestinians. They refuse to accept the Israeli plans to finish the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian existence in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. This is the real truth," Asqool said.

Haydar Oruc, a former researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, said it is "a well-known fact" that Netanyahu and the radical far-right parties that support him do not accept a possible Palestinian state.

Oruc said there were those who did not express their views until Oct 7. "They became more comfortable voicing their subconscious views due to the problematic legitimacy provided to them by the United States," he said.

He also said no neighboring Arab country has a responsibility "to accept Palestinians and please Israel just because Israel wants to". But he added they should provide the necessary support for the Palestinians to remain in their own land and react against such aggressive rhetoric by Israel.

This came as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi held talks with visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday, during which they reiterated the call for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.

Agencies and Xinhua contributed to this story.