By Shahnoor Saqib — SCN NEWS
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan joined Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates on Sunday in strongly condemning proposals by two senior Israeli ministers to facilitate the removal of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, warning that turning such calls into government policy would violate international law, undermine Palestinian rights and threaten efforts to stabilise the region. The coordinated statement by eight Muslim-majority countries specifically named Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Defence Minister Israel Katz and rejected proposals for plans and mechanisms aimed at removing Palestinians from their land.
The foreign ministers described the Israeli statements and proposals as inflammatory and said they violated principles of international law, including international humanitarian law. They rejected displacement of Palestinians either within or outside the Occupied Palestinian Territory regardless of the justification offered, warning particularly against allowing political calls for displacement to develop into declared policy or concrete government measures. Pakistan's state-run Associated Press of Pakistan separately carried the statement released by the Foreign Office spokesperson, confirming Islamabad's participation in the coordinated diplomatic action.
The joint intervention followed separate proposals from Katz and Ben-Gvir that have brought the question of Palestinian emigration from Gaza back into Israeli political debate. Katz said there was ultimately no solution for Gaza without migration and spoke of moving Palestinians by sea, air and other routes, while Ben-Gvir presented a multi-year proposal for what he describes as voluntary emigration. Reporting on Ben-Gvir's proposal said it envisioned approximately 250,000 Palestinians leaving during the first year, followed by the remainder of Gaza's population over six subsequent years.
The terminology is sharply contested. Ben-Gvir and supporters of such proposals have described departure as voluntary, while Palestinian representatives, the eight governments issuing Sunday's statement and critics of the proposals argue that removing a population living under wartime conditions raises questions of coercion and forced displacement. The joint statement therefore focused not merely on the terminology used by Israeli ministers but on the consequences of any mechanisms that could result in Palestinians being uprooted from Gaza.
The eight governments also introduced an important diplomatic dimension by arguing that implementation of such proposals would conflict with President Donald Trump's Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, which they said unequivocally rejects forced displacement. Their statement warned that attempts to uproot Palestinians would directly challenge international peace efforts and could seriously damage prospects for regional stability.
That reference is significant because Washington has itself publicly rejected forced removal. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Saturday that there was no plan underway to force Palestinians out of Gaza, following renewed Israeli discussion of relocation. The U.S. position creates a distinction between proposals advanced by individual senior Israeli ministers and what Washington says it supports, making it important not to describe the ministers' proposals automatically as an agreed U.S.-Israeli policy.
The diplomatic response also crosses several political and regional groupings. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel, while the UAE normalised relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords. Qatar has played a central mediation role in Gaza negotiations, Saudi Arabia remains a major regional diplomatic actor, Türkiye maintains a highly critical position toward Israeli operations in Gaza, and Indonesia and Pakistan do not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. Their agreement on the displacement issue therefore represents a coordinated position among governments whose individual relationships with Israel differ considerably.
The ministers stressed that Gaza remains an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and linked its future directly to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. They said Palestinian territorial unity must be preserved and reaffirmed support for a two-state solution involving an independent Palestinian state along the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with relevant international resolutions.
That language is significant because displacement proposals potentially affect not only Gaza's population but also the territorial assumptions underpinning diplomatic efforts toward Palestinian statehood. The eight governments warned specifically against imposing a new demographic or geographic reality in occupied Palestinian territory, framing population movement as an issue connected directly to the future political status of Gaza rather than merely a humanitarian or migration question.
The ministers consequently directed part of their appeal toward the United Nations Security Council, calling on it and the wider international community to confront attempts to impose such demographic or territorial changes and to ensure respect for international law. They pledged continued support for Palestinians remaining on their land and rejected attempts they said could erase the Palestinian cause or undermine Palestinian rights.
The latest Israeli proposals come as the issue of Palestinian departure from Gaza has re-entered Israeli political debate ahead of Israel's October 27 election. Ben-Gvir's proposal has been described as a seven-year programme, while Katz has also publicly advocated migration as part of a longer-term solution for Gaza. Their positions have consequently moved what had often been discussed as a theoretical or controversial wartime idea into a more explicit political-policy debate.
The distinction between voluntary migration and forced displacement will remain central to that debate. International humanitarian law prohibits the forcible transfer or deportation of protected civilians from occupied territory except under narrowly defined circumstances, while genuinely voluntary migration is a different legal category. The eight governments' statement argues that the conditions and mechanisms contemplated by the Israeli proposals would amount to forcible removal; Israeli proponents dispute that characterisation by describing departure as voluntary.
For Pakistan, Sunday's statement also continues Islamabad's longstanding diplomatic position that Palestinians should remain on their land and that the conflict should ultimately be resolved through Palestinian statehood. But the significance of the September 6 intervention lies in its multilateral character: Islamabad's position was issued simultaneously with seven other governments rather than as a standalone Pakistani condemnation, giving the response substantially broader diplomatic weight.
The most consequential element of the statement may therefore be its attempt to establish a common regional red line before proposals for Palestinian emigration move further from political rhetoric toward implementation. Eight governments with markedly different relationships with Israel have jointly declared that Gaza's Palestinian population cannot be removed to create a new demographic reality — and they have framed that position not only as a Palestinian-rights issue but as a condition for the viability of the wider peace process.