Van Hollen Calls for America To End ‘Complicity’ in What He Calls Israel’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Gaza

Senator Chris Van Hollen is calling on Washington to end U.S. “complicity” in what he says is an Israeli plan to “ethnically cleanse” Gaza of Palestinians. In a post on X, the Democrat shared a France 24 article quoting Israel’s defense minister saying the Jewish state is ready to remove Gaza’s Palestinian population if America gives a green light. “After our trip to the Gaza-Egypt border last year, @SenJeffMerkley & I released a report entitled, ‘The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.’ Now the Israeli Min of Defense confirmed that’s the goal. We must end our complicity,” Mr. Van Hollen wrote. Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said on Wednesday that Israel is “organized and prepared to get them [Gaza’s Palestinians] out — by sea, by air, by every way possible.”Mr. Katz went on to say that “80 percent of Gazans would like to emigrate, and we’re checking that all the time in the polls. … There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration. Hamas isn’t allowing them [to leave], and there are no countries in the world taking them in. President Trump put the issue on the agenda. Now every country needs to take people in — and that’s the big issue.” The defense minister also said a plan announced by Mr. Trump in February 2025 to relocate Palestinians from Gaza “hasn’t been canceled; it is being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there is no other solution for everyone’s good.”“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,” Mr. Katz added. A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in May last year found that 43 percent of Palestinians in Gaza said they were willing to emigrate from the enclave after the end of the war. A total of 49 percent said they would be willing to apply to Israel for help to “emigrate to other countries through its airports and seaports.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated in a statement on Wednesday that the Israeli army will not leave Gaza.“We control the territory here. We are not withdrawing. We are staying on this line. We control 60% of the Strip. And there is still more to come, because we are eliminating the terrorists who threaten us — we do this day in and day out,” he said.The Israel Defense Forces continued to attack Hamas on Thursday morning, issuing a statement that said Israeli soldiers operating in the northern Gaza Strip “identified a terrorist who crossed the Yellow Line and approached the troops in a manner that posed an immediate threat.” The Yellow Line separates Israeli- and Hamas-controlled areas of Gaza. “Following the identification, the Israeli Air Force struck the terrorist and eliminated him, in order to remove the threat he posed,” the army said. Israel has killed hundreds of members of terror groups since the ceasefire began in October last year, with the IDF and Mr. Netanyahu vowing to hunt down every Hamas member who took part in the October 7 attack and hostage taking.

Van Hollen Calls for America To End ‘Complicity’ in What He Calls Israel’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Gaza

Van Hollen Calls for America To End ‘Complicity’ in What He Calls Israel’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Gaza

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