Arab News | Israel minister vows to force out all of Gaza City if any Israeli abducted

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defence minister vowed Tuesday to force out all of Gaza City’s residents and displace a million people in the war-ravaged territory if any Israeli is abducted in the future.

Speaking at a memorial for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Defence Minister Israel Katz also threatened the destruction of infrastructure, which, like the forced displacement of civilians, constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

“I hereby warn the terrorist organisation and its supporters, from Iran to Erdogan — if a single Israeli soldier or civilian is kidnapped, the entire city of Gaza, with its houses and terror towers, will be evacuated southward with its million residents,” Katz said, referring to Hamas and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s Gaza campaign.

“This is the language that the extremist terrorist organisations in Gaza and Lebanon understand, and this is the language we speak — evacuation of the population, destruction of infrastructure and taking over the territory,” he said, also referring to Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah.

Gaza City is home to around 1.1 million people, according to the municipality. The entire Gaza Strip has some two million people, who after nearly three years of war have been packed into the 30 percent of the territory not controlled by Israel.

Hamas on October 7, 2023 led the deadliest attack ever against Israel in which militants killed 1,221 people and dragged into Gaza some 251 hostages, 44 of them already dead, according to Israeli official figures.

Israel launched a massive retaliatory offensive that has displaced virtually the entire population at least once and has killed 73,919 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, which operates under Hamas and whose figures are generally considered reliable.

Katz, known for his outspoken remarks, recently said that Israel agreed to an October 2025 US-brokered ceasefire declaration only to free the remaining hostages and that he expected Israel, which has kept up strikes at a lower pace, to return to full-scale war in Gaza.

The comments come ahead of October 27 elections in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criticism from the opposition that he failed both to prevent the attack and to deliver military success afterwards.

In his latest remarks, Katz again also threatened to return to war with Iran, whose cleric-run government supports Hamas.

“The work is not yet finished and if we need to, we will strike a third time until the terrorist regime is overthrown and eliminated,” Katz said.

The United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran in late February, with an initial Israeli strike killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel reluctantly halted its campaign in April after US President Donald Trump entered a ceasefire and sought a negotiated settlement to the war, which has sharply raised oil prices and been highly unpopular among US voters.