The foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority and Arab nations have jointly condemned Israeli government proposals to forcibly remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, warning that such plans would undermine international efforts to achieve peace. In a joint statement published on Sunday, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey said they condemned "in the strongest terms" any plans or mechanisms aimed at the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their land.
The declaration came days after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz stated on Wednesday that his government was prepared to evacuate Gaza's Palestinian population "by all possible means" — by sea or by air — pending approval from the United States. The following day, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of the Israeli cabinet, went further, proposing legislation to remove the entire Palestinian population from Gaza. He outlined a plan to relocate 250,000 Palestinians in the first year, with the remaining roughly two million residents to follow over the subsequent six years.
Washington moved quickly to distance itself from the proposals. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stated categorically on Saturday that no plan exists to force Palestinians out of Gaza against their will. "The Israelis are not. The Americans certainly are not. I don't know anyone who supports that," he told journalists in Turmus Ayya, a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank. He did, however, suggest that Palestinians who wished to leave voluntarily should have the right to do so.
The eight-country statement explicitly framed the Israeli proposals as a threat to the broader peace process, including a US-backed comprehensive peace plan from October 2025 put forward under President Donald Trump, which they said includes a firm rejection of forced displacement. The ministers reaffirmed that the only path to a just and lasting peace is the implementation of a two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state established on the basis of the borders of 4 June 1967 and East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal territory of roughly 365 square kilometres bordering Egypt and Israel, has been devastated by nearly three years of war following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, which killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. Since then, virtually the entire population of Gaza has been internally displaced at least once, and Gaza's Health Ministry reports that more than 73,000 people have been killed by Israeli military operations. The joint statement underscores deepening concern among regional powers that Israeli government proposals, even if not officially adopted, risk foreclosing any political settlement to the conflict.