Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs condemns Israeli calls for displacement of Palestinians

CAIRO – 4 January 2024: The Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the recent comments issued by Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir who called for the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and their resettlement outside it.

“This action is a war crime that violates the international law and international humanitarian law,” the council said in a statement on Thursday.

The council also held the international community responsible for stopping the Israeli displacement plans, which were a permanent and systematic goal for the Israeli policy before and after the establishment of the occupation state.

The calls for the forced displacement of the Palestinians rose to discussion after the current extremist government took over the rule of Israel.

The council called for putting an end to the massacres that the Israeli forces have been committing in the Gaza Strip and occupied Palestine since October 7.

The council rejected the statement issued by the Office of the spokesperson of the US Department of State, describing it as ‘inflammatory and irresponsible.’ It also renewed its condemnation of the United States’ blatant endorsement of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, where the US has been providing military, financial, and media support to the occupying state, and has used its veto power, without hesitation, in the United Nations Security Council against every draft resolution aiming for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which increased the number of victims.

“The council therefore urges Washington to take courageous positions so that its words are consistent with its actions. In this context, the council denounces the inaction of the US administration, which has fully complied with the policy of an Israeli government that has not been shy to speak of the establishment of a Greater Israel over all the occupied territories, which is defined not only as a Jewish state, but as a state in which a Jewish superiority is enshrined over all Palestinians.”

Further, the council reiterated that the “Toofan Al-Aqsa ” operation did not come from a vacuum, as stressed by Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, and that it is necessary to halt the Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, where the Palestinian people have been terrorized, killed, displaced, and detained without trials for decades by the Israeli occupation forces, and under the watch and with the support of the United States, in the absence of a political path that guarantees their legitimate rights in accordance with the resolutions of International legitimacy.

The council reaffirmed that the only path leading to the achievement of security and stability in the Middle East and the world is the path of restorating the usurped rights of the Palestinians, and implementing a just, comprehensive, and lasting solution to the conflict on the basis of the two-State solution that entails establishing a Palestinian State within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.