As Israel advances with plans to take over Gaza, the proposal for the voluntary emigration of Gaza’s Palestinian population has receded from the top of the agenda. Yet, it has not been abandoned —neither by the Israeli government nor by the Trump administration. For some, “voluntary emigration” remains a potential or even preferred course of action, whether during the war or after it.

Within the governing coalition and among right-wing commentators, continuous efforts are made to frame the relocation of Gaza’s population as both morally justified and strategically essential, as well as to devise expedited mechanisms for carrying this plan out. In our view, this approach is impractical and fraught with serious moral and strategic risks. It fosters dangerous illusions that divert attention from realistic, actionable strategies for advancing Israel’s long-term interests and strengthening its international standing.

Politicians and commentators alike have put forward a range of arguments to justify voluntary emigration of Gazans. The first, voiced by President Trump in February when he first floated the idea, is that Gaza is no longer fit for human habitation and that its residents should therefore leave to improve their quality of life. The second, raised by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, holds that it is common for people to emigrate from war zones and that preventing Gazans from doing so violates their basic rights. Polls from May 2025 indicate that 43 percent of Gazans would leave the Strip if they could. The third argument is that no political solution is possible so long as the radicalized Gazan population, significant percentages of which wish for Israel’s destruction, sits adjacent to Israel’s borders. In this context, dubious claims have circulated that there are “no innocents” and “no righteous among the nations” in Gaza. These claims are based on polls (November-December 2023) indicating that over 70% of Gazans supported Hamas’s massacre. The fourth, advocated mainly by far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, frames “voluntary emigration” as deserved punishment for Gazan civilians’ involvement in the October 7 attack and its aftermath.

Yet, six months after Trump’s proposal, no country has publicly expressed willingness to accept Gazans as part of this plan. Potential host countries likely fear the political fallout  of being linked in any way to the idea of resettling Palestinians. There are a variety of reasons for these concerns, among them potential accusations of undermining Palestinian leverage in the conflict with Israel or even of complicity in ethnic cleansing. In the Muslim world, and especially in Egypt and Jordan, the idea is politically radioactive and could stoke serious unrest.

In the West, mass relocation is deeply divisive. The European countries are less open than in the past to accepting Palestinian refugees. Even treatment of a small number of sick Gazans became controversial in Denmark, with the government refusing to let them enter the country fearing future requests for family reunions. France suspended its program to accept Gazan refugees, after one of them posted violent antisemitic posts on social media.

Indonesia and a few African states, among them Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan, and the unrecognized state of Somaliland, have been floated as possible destinations for Gazans. Yet none have publicly shown readiness to offer safe haven to any displaced Gazans, let alone absorb hundreds of thousands of them. Any agreement to accept Palestinians would likely hinge on significant concessions tied to long-standing, unresolved issues in those countries. As a result, the already daunting task of stabilizing Gaza risks becoming entangled in complex African geopolitical disputes.

Strategic and moral questions aside, we assess that the likelihood of implementing voluntary emigration is very low. Few, if any, states will accept Gazans, and most Gazans are unlikely to leave given the enormous weight of national and religious identity in the territory. Even if some countries agreed to take in emigrants, the move would likely provoke both domestic and international backlash, resulting in the relocation of only a small fraction of the population. Those who depart would most likely be destitute civilians rather than radicalized militants. The impact on extremism in Gaza would be limited.

Indeed, the core problems this policy claims to address may well persist even if substantial numbers of Gazans were to emigrate. Supporters describe “voluntary emigration” as a means of achieving a “demographic shift” to reduce “population pressure.” They suggest—often vaguely—that such a shift would enable Gaza’s demilitarization and deradicalization and lay the groundwork for a new social fabric. Yet, they offer little evidence and even fewer specifics. It also remains unclear the scale of emigration they believe would be necessary to meaningfully address this loosely defined problem. Would most Gazans need to leave, half of them, or only a small fraction? As a proposed cornerstone of Israel’s Gaza strategy, the relocation plan lacks anything resembling a realistic blueprint or clearly defined objectives.

Beyond the practical obstacles, the rationale for justifying “voluntary emigration” is fundamentally flawed and morally problematic. Although “encouraging emigration” is sometimes framed as a benevolent measure to ease the population’s misery, for some on the extreme right it is in reality a euphemism for mass relocation incentivized by extensive use of military force.  

The claim, repeatedly raised by extreme right wing Israeli politicians, that almost all Gazans are complicit in the October 7 massacres, is false by any clearly defined legal standard. Nevertheless, such assertions serve the ultra-right to preemptively justify policies of collective punishment and weaken constraints aimed at minimizing civilian suffering during war.

Radicalism is indeed a rampant problem in Gaza. Crowds celebrated when the corpses of murdered Israelis were paraded through the streets of the city, but not every man, woman, and child participated in Hamas’s attacks or bears criminal responsibility for them. It is clear that not all Gazans support Hamas: there were anti-Hamas protests in Gaza both before and during the war Hamas launched on October 7, 2023. These demonstrations took place at enormous personal risk, since Hamas routinely imprisons, tortures, and even kills its opponents. Furthermore, the attempt to draw a “damning” comparison between Gaza’s civilian population and the “Righteous Among the Nations” is flawed. The Righteous helped persecuted, but still free, Jews evade capture; most Gazan civilians would likely be unaware of information about heavily guarded prisoners in secret underground facilities. And in any case, the Israeli public would not know whether Gazan civilians have or have not provided Israel with information about hostages’ whereabouts.

Israel of course does not intend to deport Gazans by force, but the proposal for “voluntary emigration” will be presented as ethnic cleansing by its critics in the West, further deepening the rift between Israel and key allies. The policy’s stated justifications, as proclaimed by Israeli commentators and politicians, do not appear to resonate with or meaningfully influence audiences outside Israel.

Proponents of voluntary emigration seem to underestimate both the depth of global opposition to the idea and the extent to which it damages Israel’s vital interests. Israel’s economy depends primarily on North America and Europe, yet Israel’s unfavourability ratings in some of these critical regions has already passed 50 percent and, in others, 75 percent or higher.

Even without advancing a mass-emigration policy in Gaza, Israel’s support among U.S. Republicans appears to be fracturing. True, the Trump administration supports this policy and is deeply involved in efforts to implement it, but adopting a policy that raises both moral and strategic concerns—and that is likely to weaken relations with countries representing over half of Israel’s foreign trade—would have severe negative consequences on the nation’s strategic interests that, in our assessment, would far outweigh the nebulous benefits of such a move.

Rather than pursuing the shortsighted and ultimately doomed policy of “voluntary emigration,” the only viable path forward is to:

1. Support the emergence of alternative political leadership in Gaza, backed by the countries that are signatories to the Abraham Accords.
2. Target individuals directly involved in terrorist activity.
3. Identify and disrupt those engaged in mass indoctrination or radicalization by targeting the tools and platforms they use.

Israel should abandon the delusion of mass emigration and focus on pursuing practical, grounded solutions to its strategic challenges. In our view, this policy is so toxic in liberal Western discourse that merely mentioning it undermines Israel’s legal justifications for essential actions in the complicated operational reality of the Gaza Strip. Ultimately, despite the Trump administration’s support of this policy, Israel risks exhausting its diplomatic capital, exacerbating internal divisions, and confronting instability in Gaza from a weakened and isolated position.

JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.