And if some of the more extreme statements are just electioneering, what does that say about the parameters of discourse in the country if your campaign is mass ethnic cleansing? What does that say about not only the future of Gaza, but all Palestinians in occupied territories who are labouring under home demolitions, militant settlers and the de facto annexation of the West Bank?
Schemes to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza are not being promoted by fringe voices. But the international community continues to avert its eyes.
A sample from only the past few days. On Thursday, Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, detailed a scheme (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/03/israel-far-right-minister-itamar-ben-gvir-plan-removal-palestinians-gaza) for the illegal ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. He also posted an AI-generated video, now deleted, of Palestinian men entering a conveyor belt into detention, emerging emaciated and tearful. Also a few days ago, the defence minister, Israel Katz, stated that the country was 'organised and prepared' (https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260902-israel-organised-and-prepared-to-remove-gaza-population-if-us-gives-green-light-katz) to expel Palestinians from Gaza 'by every way possible'.
This macabre theatre continues to unfold, its performances less plausible by the day. The Board of Peace promises Gaza will be 'redeveloped for the benefit' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/29/trump-peace-plan-gaza-israel-hamas) of its people, while the notion that those same Palestinians in Gaza cannot be allowed to thrive is expressed by Israeli politicians with consistency and a frequency that makes a mockery of the declarations. Last month, the former head of Israel's national security council, Giora Eiland, pointed out the fact that Israel's acceptance of Donald Trump's 15-point plan was a matter of temporary military tactics, rather than long-term peace. 'Israel has no interest in Gaza being rebuilt, it's better for us that it be destroyed for generations to come,' he said (https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israeli-general-says-gaza-should-remain-destroyed-generations).
Moshe Feiglin, previously a 'far-right outcast' (https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-far-right-outcast-moshe-feiglin-resurrected-his-political-career/) according to the Times of Israel, is now within reach of a cabinet position as a result of an alliance with the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionist party. In a recent interview, Feiglin said that those who didn't want to leave Gaza should be compelled to by 'every way possible. We'll shut off his water pipes, for example.'
This sort of talk, from within the very ranks of government, is often dismissed as unrepresentative of the Israeli state (https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026-05-25/ty-article-opinion/.premium/if-ben-gvir-isnt-representative-of-israel-who-is/0000019e-5b97-d02b-a19f-5bf7cb890000) and, as there are elections ahead, is written off as the lurid but ultimately unserious rhetoric of electioneering. But people such as Ben-Gvir and Katz are not fringe voices, they are ministers with high-impact executive briefs -- security and defence -- that they have indeed used to push policy that matches their statements.
Ben-Gvir has reopened the underground Rakefet prison (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/08/israel-underground-jail-rakefet-palestinians-gaza-detainees), one closed in the 1980s for being inhumane. He has successfully pushed for the death penalty (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8dkd6lnjdo) for Palestinians convicted of terror attacks, and celebrated the legislation (https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/04/world/video/israeli-minister-celebrates-birthday-noose-digvid-vrtc) with a noose-themed cake. Torture and sexual abuse in Israeli prisons (https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/05/torture-abuse-and-humiliation-palestinians-on-israeli-prison-hell) are widely documented, the latter earning Israel a spot (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx21le869n1o) on the UN's sexual violence in war zones blacklist. As Ben-Gvir himself is fond of saying, 'we promised, we delivered' (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/03/ben-gvir-palestinian-comments).
Katz has approved (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j5954edlno) the biggest settlement expansion in the West Bank in decades and justified the move on the grounds that it 'prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel'; he recently advanced (https://www.timesofisrael.com/katz-idf-has-2-weeks-to-draft-plan-to-hand-west-bank-civilian-enforcement-to-police/) legalisation of outpost settlement farms in the West Bank, and instructed the IDF to hand over law enforcement in the West Bank to the Israeli police (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/14/israeli-military-plans-transfer-law-enforcement-in-occupied-west-bank-to-police), which is a stealth move towards annexation.
As the Knesset member Ahmad Tibi wrote in Haaretz earlier this year, a fiction exists at the heart of Israeli politics, where politicians' efforts to explain and justify policy to international opinion proceed as though 'the racism and extremism now driving government policy exist only on the margins'. When really, it lies at the heart of the state.