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Billie Eilish has spoken out about Israel’s relocation plans for Gaza, labelling it as “horrifying”.
The comment relates to reports from CNN, which reported that the defence minister in Israel has told the military to accelerate plans for what he described as a “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The report said that Israel Katz said on Monday (July 7) that the zone would be used to house some of the 600,000 displaced people of Palestine who have been forced to evacuate to the Al-Mawasi area.
Those who go into the zone will allegedly go through a screening process to ensure that they are not members of Hamas, and once in, they will be unable to leave. Katz has expressed plans to eventually have the entire population of Gaza (which is over 2million people) held in the zone.
From there, Israel plans to look into the idea, first put forward by US President Donald Trump, to allow the Palestinian people to emigrate to other countries.
On her Instagram story, singer Billie Eilish shared a BBC video that showed the minister discussing the relocation plans, and overlaid it with the word: “Horrifying”.
The artist has not openly spoken out about her stance on the conflict, although sis did seem to make a gesture of solidarity with the people of Palestine by wearing a red ceasefire pin at the Oscars this year (via Tribune).
As for further details about the plans for the people of Palestine, Katz has said that the zone will be run by international bodies rather than the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
As highlighted by CNN, it is currently unclear which bodies would be willing to help implement the plans.
Yesterday (July 8), the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy outlined that the UK opposes the plan, and described it as something that “run[s] contra to the proximity to a ceasefire that I thought we were heading towards.”
He also added that he does not view the plans as “a serious context in which the people of Gaza can get the aid and support that they need at this time.”
An Israeli human rights lawyer named Michael Sfard also told the news outlet that the plans to forcibly transfer the people of Palestine could “amount to war crimes” if “done on a massive scale”.
“There is no consensual departure. There is no voluntary departure. People will flee from Gaza because Israel is mounting on them coercive measures that would make their life in Gaza impossible,” he told CNN. “Under international law, you don’t have to load people on trucks at gunpoint in order to commit the crime of deportation.”
A senior diplomat from the United Arab Emirates has said that the UAE has “publicly and categorically rejected the forced displacement of Palestinians”, too, and Qatar – which is hosting proximity talks between Israel and Hamas – has also rejected the plans.
Speaking yesterday (8), Majed Al Ansari, spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said: “We have said very clearly we are against any forced relocation of Palestinians, or any relocation of Palestinians outside their land.”
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