“There is a purpose to this war, and it’s a criminal one,” wrote Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in Haaretz this past weekend.

The Israeli Knesset  hosted a conference on Tuesday in which far-right politicians and settlers openly discussed a “proposed plan” to cleanse the  Gaza Strip of Palestinians and annex it for  Israel.

At the conference, titled “The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defence ministry, said “We will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel.”

Throughout the speech, he was met with cheers from other members of the Knesset and radical settler groups in attendance.

Smotrich claimed that Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir favours the idea of occupying part of Gaza through a so-called “security annexation.”

“I truly believe there is a tremendous opportunity here,” Smotrich said, suggesting that Israel begin “with the northern border [area of the strip] and establish three communities there. We are already talking about it. Some call it a ‘security annexation’.”

Smotrich described this occupation as a path to fully conquer Gaza, and spoke of “a proposed plan to relocate Gazans to other countries,” which he said “will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip.”

He spoke of a “green light from the president of the United States to turn Gaza into a prosperous strip, a resort town with employment,” referring to U.S. President Trump’s stated support for efforts to remove more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza to turn the strip into a “resort........

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