Israeli assessment: Collapse of the Palestinian deportation plan due to Trump's retreat and their insistence on staying

After the Israeli admission that plans to relocate the population of the Gaza Strip to other countries have been frozen due to international rejection, and after US President Donald Trump himself withdrew from them, the peace plan he proposed actually talks about encouraging them to stay. Shalom Yerushalmi, the political analyst for the Zman Israel website, mentioned that "the voluntary migration plan for the residents of the Gaza Strip, which resonated widely in the occupying state and around the world since the beginning of the war, is fading, and it acknowledges that the plan, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described in the Knesset as a 'post-war plan,' has been frozen, and all senior officials who dealt with it now acknowledge that it is not feasible, and the 'voluntary resettlement administration' announced by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant still exists on paper, but it is clear to everyone that it is ineffective, and will be closed sooner or later." He added in an article translated by "Arabi21" that "the main reasons for the plan's failure lie in Trump's gradual retreat from the idea he proposed in February, and at the same time, the world's refusal to absorb Palestinians coming from Gaza, and to this day, Indonesia is the only country willing to host them, and some say it will host all of them." He quoted a high-ranking Israeli political source as saying that "this matter is contingent on the compensations that the United States will provide, as the Indonesians are ready for a deal at a symbolic cost, and everything is still dependent on Trump, who seriously proposed the idea of voluntary migration, and it is clear that it also depends on the desire of Gaza residents to migrate." He pointed out that "the issue of encouraging the voluntary migration of Gaza residents was a winning political card at the beginning of the war on it, and Netanyahu spoke about it in the Likud bloc, and Minister Gila Gamliel wrote an action plan, then distributed video clips depicting life in Gaza after this mass migration, and Israel tried, through the Foreign Ministry and the Mossad, to find migration destinations, and conducted talks with developing countries in Africa to absorb Gaza residents, but countries like Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and others rejected the offers, and to this day, efforts continue with various countries without tangible results." The same high-ranking political source confirmed that "most Palestinians in Gaza want to leave the Strip, but to Western countries and Australia, not to Africa, where 2.1 million Palestinians live today, and the Netanyahu government claims that a third of them still support Hamas, a third support Fatah, and the rest are neutral, and their options for leaving the Strip are also limited, after Egypt announced its categorical refusal to allow large numbers of them to leave the Strip through the Rafah crossing." He explained that "Trump, who officially announced the idea of voluntary migration during Netanyahu's visit to Washington in February, retreated from it after receiving sharp criticism from the world, even from his close associates, because the plan was interpreted internationally as forced deportation, not migration, and in the meantime, the war ended, and Trump's 20-point plan for a peace agreement in Gaza talks about smart cities and economic reconstruction along the Strip, but it does not address migration; on the contrary, Gaza residents will be able to leave in exchange for economic benefits and return to Gaza whenever they want, after its reconstruction." He concluded by saying that "Article 12 of Trump's plan stipulates that no one will be forced to leave Gaza, but those who choose to leave will be allowed to return, in addition to that, the focus will be on encouraging Gaza residents to stay in the Strip, and giving them the opportunity to build a better future there, although Israel does not really believe in this utopia, nor in the full implementation of the 20-point plan, which includes disarming Hamas through international stabilization forces that Trump wants to send to the Strip as part of the second phase".