Gaza
Gaza transfer plans renamed, not retired, as displacement figures hold
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
The Israeli plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza has been renamed rather than withdrawn. Israel's Channel 13 reported in late June that political and security bodies were instructed to stop saying "voluntary migration" and to use "free movement plan" instead, language officials hoped would be, as the channel put it, more acceptable internationally. The report was carried by the Times of Israel, Middle East Monitor, Yeni Şafak and Al Jazeera, which noted the government had decided to rebrand the agency handling the file.
The agency exists in law. Haaretz reported in March 2025 that Israel's security cabinet approved a "Voluntary Emigration Bureau for Gaza residents interested in relocating to third countries," which Defence Minister Israel Katz said would operate in line with Israeli and international law. Israeli outlet Mako reported the plan, prepared by the military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, envisaged exits by land through Kerem Shalom, by air through Ramon airport and by sea through Ashdod port. The Jerusalem Post reported that Katz appointed a deputy director-general of the defence ministry, Col. (res.) Yaakov Blitstein, to head the directorate, saying Israel was determined to realise President Donald Trump's vision of voluntary emigration. Katz was quoted by Channel 14 saying checks indicated at least 40 per cent of Gaza's residents wanted to emigrate; no published survey supporting that figure has been produced.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a Knesset Land of Israel lobby conference in March 2025, according to Makor Rishon, that a large emigration directorate was being set up in the defence ministry, that any budget spent on it would cost less than fighting repeatedly, and that the budget "will not stand as an obstacle."
The earliest published proposal predates all of this. +972 Magazine and Local Call published in full a ten-page Israeli Intelligence Ministry policy paper dated 13 October 2023 that set out three options for Gaza's civilian population and recommended the third: evacuation of the population to the Sinai. The Times of Israel reported that Israel acknowledged a ministry had drafted the proposal, which envisaged tent cities in northern Sinai followed by permanent construction, and that Egypt has consistently refused any such arrangement. Maariv reported in February 2025 that Jordan and Egypt were preparing an alternative plan, and cited Al-Arabiya reporting that Cairo had "closed the door" on allocating land for Gaza's residents.
In February 2025, at a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump proposed United States ownership of Gaza and called on Egypt and Jordan to absorb its population, later saying in a Fox News interview that relocation would be permanent with no right of return, as the Center for American Progress and NBC News reported. Saudi Arabia issued a rebuke within hours, according to the International Bar Association, which reported that legal experts described the scheme as contravening international law.
The most detailed document is the 38-page Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust. The Washington Post reported it would place Gaza under a US-administered trusteeship for at least ten years; CNBC reported it envisages "voluntary" relocation of the population in exchange for digital tokens, six to eight "AI-powered smart cities" and a manufacturing zone. Landowners would receive a token exchangeable for a new life elsewhere or redeemable later for an apartment, the Post reported. Middle East Eye reported the document treats the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as its starting point, gives GHF a six-to-twelve-month role, and was shared with the Trump administration after a first draft in April 2025. The Times of Israel reported that a Washington-based Boston Consulting Group team carried out the financial modelling and that a person familiar with the planning said the prospectus was complete in April with minimal change since, adding it was "not prescriptive." The Post said the White House referred questions to the State Department, which declined to comment.
The Financial Times, which first reported elements of the scheme in July 2025, found BCG had modelled the cost of relocating Palestinians, work worth more than $4m under the codename "Aurora," according to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre summary. L'Orient Today, citing the FT, reported that the modelling covered relocating a quarter of Gaza's population and that Somalia and Somaliland were among destinations considered, with two Tony Blair Institute staff in the working group. BCG's chief executive apologised to employees, the Boston Globe reported, saying two partners had been terminated for undisclosed, unauthorised work and that the firm "unequivocally" disavowed their actions; the New Humanitarian reported Save the Children suspended its partnership with the firm.
No receiving state has been identified on the record. The New Arab reported that at a June 2026 meeting on encouraging emigration convened by Israel's National Security Council chief, Mossad representatives said they had found no country willing to take Gazans. The same report noted a US-Gulf joint statement of 25 June saying no one will be forced to leave Gaza and that anyone who leaves is free to return.
Against the proposals sit the movement figures. OCHA states that nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million people have been displaced. UNRWA situation reports citing OCHA recorded 1.9 million people, about 90 per cent of the population, displaced during the war, more than 737,000 displaced again after the March 2025 ceasefire collapse, and over 86 per cent of the Strip inside Israeli-militarised zones, under displacement orders, or both.
UNOSAT's assessment of imagery from 11 October 2025 found about 81 per cent of all structures in Gaza damaged, including 123,464 destroyed. OCHA data reported in January 2025 put housing units destroyed or damaged at at least 92 per cent.
Sources diverge on departures. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said roughly 100,000 people have been forced to leave Gaza and that the population fell by about 254,000, or 10.6 per cent, in two years; Israel's foreign ministry said in 2025 that PCBS data was falsified. Israel's Channel 12 reported in April 2025 that some 36,000 had left, about 2,000 through Israeli territory and most through Rafah.
On the law, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur, said in October 2023 that forcible population transfers constitute a crime against humanity and that collective punishment is prohibited. A group of UN special rapporteurs, including Francesca Albanese, said in April 2026 that the repeated displacement of the vast majority of Gaza's population amounts to forcible transfer, and called on Israel to end all forcible transfer and facilitate safe and voluntary return. The Palestinian rights group BADIL argues that consent cannot be free inside a coercive environment, and that third states supporting "voluntary migration" would be complicit in forcible transfer.
What has not been established is whether any government will sign an agreement to receive people, on what terms, or how departures would be recorded. Katz said in late May 2026, as reported by Mondoweiss, that the plan would be implemented "at the right timing and in the right manner." OCHA notes that Security Council Resolution 2803, adopted after the October 2025 ceasefire, has yet to translate into tangible improvement on the ground.
