5 min readJul 17, 2025 07:14 AM IST
First published on: Jul 12, 2025 at 01:20 PM IST
Even as ceasefire talks continue in Doha, the bombs keep falling on Gaza. On July 10, Israeli airstrikes reportedly killed 82 Palestinians, pushing the death toll since October 2023 beyond 55,000. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been displaced, and much of the enclave lies in ruins. While diplomats speak of “phased withdrawals” and “hostage exchanges,” the war’s deeper tragedy is unfolding on another scale: The erasure of a people’s presence from their homeland under the guise of humanitarian planning.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest proposal, endorsed by Israel’s security cabinet, outlines the full military capture of Gaza, indefinite control over its territory, and the creation of a so-called humanitarian city on the ruins of Rafah. Under this plan, Israeli forces would control the perimeter of the site and initially relocate some 6,00,000 Palestinians, primarily those already displaced in the Al-Mawasi area, into the zone. Eventually, the entire population of Gaza would be concentrated there. Israeli officials have openly linked this relocation to a broader emigration scheme, described by one as something that “will happen”, raising serious concerns that this so-called humanitarian arrangement is in fact a staging ground for mass displacement.
This is not the language of peace. It is the architecture of a controlled displacement. While the Israeli government frames its intentions as voluntary relocation, prominent human rights lawyers and legal scholars have called it what it is: Forced transfer, which is both illegal under international law and morally indefensible. As Michael Sfard, a leading Israeli human rights lawyer, put it plainly: “It is all about population transfer… in preparation for deportation outside the Strip.”
In the background, the rhetoric of Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump hints at a shared vision for Gaza that stretches beyond ceasefire deals. Trump’s earlier proposal to transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” has, within months, evolved into open discussions of third-country resettlement for Palestinians — an idea that has been openly embraced by far-right Israeli leaders. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has categorically rejected any withdrawal from the territory Israel has “conquered”, explicitly linking military occupation with expansionist goals in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile, efforts to negotiate a 60-day pause in hostilities, mediated by Qatar, are inching forward. The terms under discussion include phased hostage releases, expanded humanitarian access, and Israeli military withdrawals from parts of Gaza. But the core impasse remains: Hamas demands a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal, while Netanyahu insists on Hamas’s unconditional surrender and removal. In other words, both sides continue to speak past one another while civilians are crushed between ruin and rhetoric.
This is not to excuse Hamas. Its October 7 cross-border attack, which killed civilians and triggered the current war, was a destructive act that has only deepened Palestinian suffering. The group has not only endangered Israeli lives but has also placed Palestinians in Gaza in a double bind, using them as human shields in wartime and as political leverage in negotiations. Yet Hamas’s actions cannot justify the obliteration of Gaza, nor should they be used to obscure the underlying realities of occupation, blockade, and dispossession that long preceded this war.
What is at stake is more than ceasefire logistics. The current moment risks hardening a framework in which Palestinian existence is contained and relocated rather than recognised and restored. A humanitarian pause that simply reorders the geography of displacement is not peace. A corridor controlled by foreign troops is not sovereignty. And a camp built on the ruins of Rafah is not a future.
For decades, Palestinians have demanded something very simple and very difficult: The right to live freely in their homeland. That demand has been undermined not only by Israel’s policies but also by a global order willing to look away when the language of security is used to justify siege and expulsion. The international community, including India, must reject any diplomatic framework that seeks to normalise permanent displacement or indefinite occupation.
There can be no durable solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict without recognising the Palestinian right to remain on their land and live free from forced displacement. Ceasefires are essential to ending violence. They may bring temporary relief, but they do not dismantle the structures that sustain it or substitute for justice. If the talks in Qatar are to lead anywhere meaningful, they must move beyond preserving Israel’s military objectives and confront what has been lost by the Palestinians.
What is unfolding in Gaza cannot be separated from the pressures and dispossession faced by Palestinians in the West Bank. Any agreement that ignores this shared reality risks becoming a cover for entrenching injustice. The goal cannot be to manage Palestinian displacement. It must be brought to an end. A just resolution of the Palestinian question is not a threat to Israeli security. It is the surest path to it.
The writer is a Professor in the Centre for West Asian Studies (Middle Eastern), Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
Palestinians search for survivors and bodies amid the debris of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP) 
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