Defense Minister Israel Katz said it is only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to encourage the emigration of its two million Palestinians, a blunt reminder that the machinery of state power keeps running even when the language shifts to ceasefire and hostages.
Katz made the comments while responding to criticism from another right-wing contender, Ofer Winter of the People of Israel party, ahead of the October 27 election. The exchange was less a debate over peace than a contest over who gets to manage Gaza’s population next. One side talks about disarming Hamas, the other about finishing the job. Ordinary people remain the object.
The State's Monopoly
Katz said 70 percent of Gaza has already been emptied of its population by the war there. He said an October 2025 ceasefire announced by US President Donald Trump had "supreme value for all Israelis" by leading to the return of remaining hostages and ensuring "a commitment by the United States" to disarming Hamas. The ceasefire, in other words, did not end the logic of force. It reorganized it.
"We all understand that this is not going to happen — and the IDF is prepared, once given the directive to eliminate Hamas, to finish the job so that we can also implement the migration plan," Katz said. The sentence lays out the arrangement in plain language: the army waits for orders, the state sets the target, and the people of Gaza are treated as a population to be moved, emptied, or managed. That’s the apparatus speaking without the usual varnish.
Katz said earlier this month that Israel was ready to remove Palestinians from Gaza by sea and land but was waiting for the United States, which he said was discussing where the two million people would go. The plan depends on another state’s logistics, another state’s approval, another state’s map. The borders may be different, but the hierarchy is familiar.
Who Gets Moved, Who Decides
Katz described the migration plan as voluntary, saying most Palestinians wanted to leave. The basis of that claim was unclear. That uncertainty matters. It’s the kind of claim states lean on when they want coercion to sound like choice. The language softens the force. The force stays.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee has denied any plan to "displace people out of Gaza against their will." The denial sits beside Katz’s remarks without resolving them. One official says migration, another says no displacement, and the people in Gaza remain the ones whose lives are being discussed as if they were a transport problem.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced, and most of the territory lies in rubble after the war. Those are the facts underneath the political theater. The ceasefire, the election, the promises, the denials — all of it floats above a landscape already shattered by war and administration.
The Election Machine Keeps Turning
Katz’s comments came ahead of the October 27 election, where right-wing rivals are already competing over how hard to press the same machinery. The People of Israel party, the IDF, the US administration, and the defense ministry all appear in the same frame, each claiming a different role, none offering a way out for the people trapped inside the system they govern.
The talk of a migration plan, a ceasefire, and a future directive to eliminate Hamas shows how quickly the language of restraint turns back into the language of removal. Gaza’s civilians are left with the usual options offered by states: stay under bombardment, move under pressure, or be discussed by officials who call it policy.