Israeli Ministers Push for Gaza Depopulation Plan Amid Ongoing Airstrikes and West Bank Violence

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has proposed the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, waves as he visits the Mahaneh Yehudah Market in West Jerusalem on September 4, 2026. Last week, far-right Israeli ministers began more forcefully advocating the wholesale removal of Palestinians in Gaza, 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”, stating that Israel is prepared to do it “by sea, by air and by every way possible”, and adding that US President Donald Trump has merely “frozen” rather than cancelled his support for the idea. Subsequently, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled a seven-year plan termed “Disengagement 710” to remove Gaza’s approximately two million residents through what he termed “voluntary emigration”. Ben-Gvir noted that if re-elected, he would establish a Migration Ministry dedicated to expelling Palestinians. The US State Department stated that it “does not support any plan or proposal for the forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer of the population of Gaza”, though it stopped short of directly condemning Katz or Ben-Gvir.

Gaza’s death toll continued to rise 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, and resulted in the capture of Moin al-Arabeed, whom Israel identified as the head of Hamas’s internal security. A drone strike killed a child in Jabalia refugee camp on Wednesday, while an attack on a tent in Khan Younis killed one person on the same day. On Thursday, two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, were shot dead near Beit Lahia after the Israeli military stated they crossed into an Israeli-controlled area. A separate drone strike killed a man near a church compound in Gaza City’s Remal neighbourhood. Strikes persisted toward the end of the week, including an attack near a school in Gaza City on Sunday that wounded several people, and a drone strike on a car near Gaza City’s Hamid intersection that killed Youssef Akila and his young daughter, Wafaa.

Before dawn on Monday, at least five more Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including three-year-old Saadi Ghalia, who died when an artillery shell struck a school sheltering displaced people in Deir el-Balah. By Monday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 73,658 people have been killed and 174,622 wounded since October 2023, following the addition of 160 newly certified deaths. Of that total, more than 1,340 individuals have been killed since the October 2025 Israeli-Hamas ceasefire. Body recoveries continued alongside ongoing casualties; families in northern Gaza held funerals on Sunday for roughly 100 people, including 60 children, whose remains were pulled from the rubble of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, many belonging to the extended Malaka family. Gaza civil defence chief Raed al-Dahshan told Al Jazeera that his teams could recover an estimated 8,000 additional bodies trapped under rubble within 90 days if provided with proper heavy equipment, warning that without it, the work will take years. Between 10,000 and 14,000 people remain missing under the rubble in Gaza.

Humanitarian conditions within the strip continue to deteriorate as insufficient aid enters the territory. The World Health Organization warned that water contamination in Gaza has nearly tripled since January, while the Palestinian Water Authority reported that all five of Gaza’s wastewater plants have completely shut down, discharging approximately 55,000 cubic metres of untreated sewage daily.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces carried out numerous demolitions. In Khirbet al-Tabban located in Masafer Yatta, all 12 homes were demolished, leaving 70 people—including 30 children—homeless. Council head Nidal Younis described the action as “wiping the village off the face of the earth” and stated that residents intend to rebuild. Israeli forces also destroyed four water wells and several greenhouses in nearby Beit Ummar in Hebron, causing an estimated $60,000 in losses, and demolished a home in Nahalin in the Bethlehem governorate. Around Jenin, the bulldozing of hundreds of farmers’ trees continued along the Arraba-Yabad and Jenin-Nablus roads as part of six military orders issued in August to clear vegetation across four Jenin-area villages, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

In occupied East Jerusalem’s al-Bustan neighbourhood, community representative Fakhri Abu Diab reported that municipal bulldozers demolished a four-apartment building, marking the 60th demolition in the area since October 2023. Another home was demolished in Beit Hanina on Monday morning, and authorities compelled a Palestinian man in Jabal al-Mukaber to demolish his own home. Despite property destruction across various regions, the most sustained violence centered on al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah. Settlers and soldiers raided the village on Wednesday evening following accusations that residents stole livestock. Snipers deployed on rooftops opened fire as residents attempted to stop settlers from stealing sheep, killing 16-year-old Khalil Abu Alia and 19-year-old Mohammad Nassan. 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 stated Nassan was shot in the back. In subsequent days, mourners were beaten and pepper-sprayed, their vehicle was stolen, and an ambulance was attacked. Wafa reported late Sunday that Israeli settlers killed 20-year-old Omar Tubasi and injured three individuals during a raid and shooting in the village of Hajja, east of Qalqilya. Settlers also stormed Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills on Friday, injuring a child, after which arriving soldiers declared the area a closed military zone enforced against Palestinians while allowing settlers to remain. In Turmus Ayya north of Ramallah, a settler wearing a Kach movement logo was filmed on a Palestinian home declaring the land Jewish following a visit by US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who had termed settler violence a form of terrorism. In Qusra, south of Nablus, a month-long siege of three homes persisted as the army initially blocked peace activists from delivering food and medicine, while settlers stole water tanks and livestock in the Jordan Valley and sabotaged water lines near Tayasir. In East Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police shot and killed 33-year-old Ibrahim al-Hendi from Beit Hanina near Damascus Gate on Friday, alleging he attempted to stab an officer.