Gaza at risk: the EU has the power to stop forced expulsion

A year ago, in February 2024, we warned in another article in Agenda Pública about the ultimate goal that the State of Israel sought to achieve with its massive military operation in the Gaza Strip (State of Palestine), launched in October 2023.

It was a plan, adopted as Israeli government policy, to be developed in two phases. In the first, the entire Gazan population would be expelled from their homes, intending to systematically destroy them. Thereby generating the forced internal displacement of the entire population and, most importantly, making it impossible for them to return to their homes —no longer existent— by turning the Gaza Strip into an uninhabitable wasteland. Once this first phase was completed, we also expressed fear that the second and final phase would begin, consisting of deporting the entire Palestinian population out of the Gaza Strip, expelling them from the territory of the Palestinian State.

"For the Israeli plan, the total and absolute destruction of the Gaza Strip and its transformation into an uninhabitable place for human beings is necessary"

But how could Israel present and get acceptance from states and international public opinion for its forced displacements of the population from their homes, from the land they have always inhabited? Furthermore, how can we be convinced that none of this constitutes a crime against humanity: the crime of "deportation or forcible transfer of population," as defined in Article 7.1(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, already applied by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946 to Nazi criminals? This is undoubtedly the most sensitive aspect of the plan, and one on which a significant part of its final success depends.

For this to happen, the total and absolute destruction of the Gaza Strip and its transformation into an uninhabitable place for human beings is necessary. Once this is achieved, no one in their right mind would want to —and even if they insisted, they could not— continue living there. Gazans would then be more than willing to leave their land voluntarily, and the entire deportation operation could even be presented as a humanitarian effort. In this way, not only would it be accepted, but it would be praised by Western states and their public opinion, and who knows, perhaps even rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize.

Well, with the first phase of the plan completed, the time has come to begin implementing the second phase. The United States will play a crucial role, just as it did in the first phase. Its role —executed perfectly by the Biden administration— was essentially indirect, yet decisive. To the extent that we must consider it a necessary accomplice to the crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, and perhaps genocide) perpetrated en masse by the Israeli government.

"We must consider the U.S. a necessary accomplice to the crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, and perhaps genocide) perpetrated 'en masse' by the Israeli government"

In this second phase of the plan, the role of the United States will be direct: its government —this time led by Trump— not only expressly accepts the Israeli government's plan but actively participates in it. The aim is to design and implement a large-scale humanitarian project, a sort of Marshall Plan for Gaza. It would save Gazans from inhumane living conditions, rescuing them from an already uninhabitable place and offering them the chance to rebuild their lives elsewhere. And, once the territory has been emptied of its undesirable inhabitants, to rebuild it into a dream destination for affluent tourists. Moreover, this would demonstrate (once again, they would say) the inability of Palestinians to build a future, contrasted with the skill and genius of the West —particularly the Israelis— in creating paradises where others only generated hell.

The second Nakba, a long-cherished plan of radical Zionism to build its dream of Greater Israel (see Ilan Pappé, The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories), began implementation in October 2023. As of February 2025, it has entered its second and final phase.
We still have time to prevent its success, which would represent —let us emphasise— the most absolute moral failure of what Westerners have always believed and defended since World War II. It would also mark the end of the Western liberal order, destroyed by its own creators and their unbearable contradictions.

However, it is true that, unlike the first phase of the plan —relatively straightforward, however inhumane and cruel, if one has sufficient military power and the political will to carry it out, as the Israeli government has done— this second phase is much more complex to implement successfully, as it depends on third parties. First, on the Palestinians themselves, who have demonstrated their inexhaustible resilience as a people for decades; and on their authorities in Gaza, Hamas, which, far from being defeated, appears firmer, stronger, and more supported by Palestinian citizens than ever before.

"We still have time to prevent the success of the Israeli plan, which would represent—let us emphasise—the most absolute moral failure of what Westerners have always believed and defended since World War II"

Second, it depends on the willingness of third-party states: those where Israel and the United States intend to deport 2.3 million Palestinians, primarily neighbouring Arab countries. Their stance will be crucial in preventing this criminal plan —in the strictest sense, a crime against humanity involving the forced transfer of people— from being carried out. But it also depends on the rest of the international community, since its implementation violates peremptory norms of general international law and, consequently, erga omnes obligations (binding on all). It constitutes the commission of core international crimes that affect the entire global community.

Furthermore, and very specifically, it depends on the European Union and its member states: will they collaborate in this second phase of the plan through their silence or indirect support, as they did in the first? Will they take a further step and participate directly and openly in the deportation?

Let us stop excusing ourselves with a supposed incapacity that, in reality, merely conceals a lack of political will.

"Let us stop excusing ourselves with a supposed incapacity of the European Union that, in reality, merely conceals a lack of political will"

Let us recall Hannah Arendt and her concept of the banality of evil as developed in Eichmann in Jerusalem. I thought its most contemporary example was Israeli tourist boats sailing off the coast of Gaza to watch destruction and death first-hand. But the U.S. president's announcement of building luxury resorts on the smouldering ruins of one of the world's oldest civilisations surpasses this by far.

And let us all remember John Donne’s poem No Man Is an Island, where, in 1624, he warned us that "the death of any man diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."