Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen on Tuesday praised US President Donald Trump‘s plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.
In the interview with Channel 14, Cohen claimed that Trump’s plan was “based on sound logic.”
Last week, Trump called to “just clean out” the Gaza Strip and resettle Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt, describing the shattered enclave as a “demolition site.”
Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023 and reduced the enclave to a rubble.
Cohen, a former foreign minister, said Trump’s proposal would support Israel’s efforts to continue its large-scale operations in Gaza to “cleanse” what he described as “all the infrastructure of terrorism.”
“The massive destruction in Gaza will take years, perhaps over a decade, to repair, and that’s why they (the Palestinians) must leave,” Cohen said.
To justify Israel’s position on displacing Palestinians, Cohen referenced other irrelevant global conflicts, saying: “We saw in Syria (2011-2024) that there were 8 million refugees, more than a million of whom went to Jordan.”
He also mentioned the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, citing the displacement of refugees to Europe and the US. He said this demonstrated that Trump’s plan “is based on sound logic.”
The minister alleged that Egypt and Jordan have refused to accept Palestinian refugees, arguing that it reflects their lack of genuine support for the Palestinians.
Both Egypt and Jordan have vehemently rejected Trump’s call to displace Palestinians from Gaza, whether temporarily or long-term.