US senators say Washington aiding Israel's Gaza ethnic cleansing plan

The Israeli government is implementing a US-backed plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian territory’s population, two American Senators who visited the region last month have said.

Democrat Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley’s seven-day visit last month included stops in Egypt, Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Jordan.

They spoke to reporters about their trip during a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington D.C. on Thursday.

In Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, they visited the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to observe aid efforts there related to the ongoing war in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israel has controlled the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing since early 2024, restricting aid entries and worsening the dire humanitarian situation in the territory.

"The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit. The World Must Stop It," the front page of the 21-page report reads.

Van Hollen and Merkley say that the international community has a legal and moral obligation to stop this ethnic cleansing plan being carried out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and move to impose concrete sanctions and other pressure.

Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the nearly two-year war in Gaza, where more than 64,700 people have been killed.

His government is now seeking to occupy the entire Strip, and the Israeli military on Friday was preparing to storm and conquer Gaza City. This has forced out hundreds of thousands of people; the war has already displaced nearly all the Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants.

Many nations, world officials, and rights organisations have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, something Tel Aviv denies.

Van Hollen and Merkley’s report concluded that Israel is implementing its plan to displace the Palestinians from Gaza through a dual strategy, which includes deliberately obstructing the delivery of adequate quantities of food and other necessities and destroying infrastructure.

"We found that the Netanyahu government has used a two-pronged approach to pursue its current strategy to displace Palestinians from Gaza — the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and the use of food and humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war. The goal is, in effect, to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population," the report says.

The report stated that the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Gaza’s population — including their transfer to areas such as Al-Mawasi, which, despite being designated a "safe zone," has been attacked multiple times — is part of an ongoing Israeli military strategy that ultimately aims to fully cleanse the enclave.

The Senators revealed that they also documented, through conversations with "credible and reliable sources" in Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, and Egypt, the destruction of 92 percent of housing units, 94 percent of the territory’s hospitals, 92 percent of schools and university buildings, and 86 percent of water and sanitation facilities.

They added that portraying the expulsion of Gaza’s Palestinian inhabitants as a voluntary departure is a "cruel hoax".

"The fact that both the Netanyahu government and now the Trump Administration are framing their plan as a call for the "voluntary" exodus of Palestinians from Gaza is one of the most fraudulent, sinister, and twisted cover stories ever told," the Senators say in their report.

"It is a farce to suggest people who have been subjected to destruction and dehumanisation on such a vast scale would be departing Gaza "voluntarily." The plan is clearly to pressure Palestinians to leave Gaza by making life for them there virtually impossible."

The report accused US President Donald Trump’s administration – which, despite some criticism, has continued to offer Israel unwavering support – of backing this plan.

Since the early months of the war, extremist Israeli officials such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – both illegal West Bank settlers – have called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and resettlement of Jewish Israelis.

Both ministers have been barred from entering several European countries for their inflammatory sentiments against the Palestinians.

"For some, like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, that has been a long-held vision, just as they seek to push Palestinians from the West Bank. For others, that may have become a goal of the war along the way. And even for those that may not intend that result, it has become the undeniable reality based on the facts on the ground," Van Hollen and Merkley added in their report.

"Whether or not Palestinians will ultimately be driven out of all or most of Gaza is yet unknown. The world has a moral and legal obligation to stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing there ... The world must impose penalties and costs on those who are implementing this plan."