The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar, stated this Wednesday that his country has no plans to forcibly expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, as recently declared by other members of the Israeli government.
“We have no intention of expelling anyone from Gaza. They can leave voluntarily if any country is willing to host them, but we will not force anyone to leave,” Sa’ar assured the press in Ljubljana, after meeting with his Slovenian counterpart, Tone Kajzer, to inaugurate the first Israeli embassy in Slovenia.
As AFP reported, several members of the Israeli Executive have proposed plans aimed at making the two million inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave leave, devastated by war, presenting this initiative largely as voluntary and claiming that its inhabitants want to leave, but that the Islamist movement Hamas prevents them.
Last week, the Israeli Minister of National Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvir, had presented a plan to displace 1.86 million Palestinians from the Strip over the next seven years, as reported by EFE.
The visit of Saar to Slovenia is the first by an Israeli official of this level to Slovenia in the last 16 years, since until now, diplomatic relations between the two countries were managed by non-resident ambassadors, according to EFE.
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With the arrival to power of the new Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Janša, the country lifted the ban on the export and transit of weapons to and from Israel, among other measures.
Janša, a declared admirer of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, took office in May after winning the general elections held in March, and replaced the previous liberal government, favorable to the Palestinian cause.
The Slovenian premier has also expressed his intention to move his embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and to “freeze” the recognition of the Palestinian State made by the previous administration of Robert Golob.
