Ben Gvir’s Plan: 1.86 Million Palestinians Are to Leave Gaza

Section: Geopolitics
Format: Special Report
Author: Sinisa Brkic (sb)

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has presented a sweeping political plan aimed at the departure of approximately 1.86 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip within seven years. The proposal, called “Disengagement 710,” describes the process as “voluntary emigration” and calls for a dedicated government ministry, agreements with receiving countries, financial assistance and organized migration pathways. It is not adopted Israeli government policy, but Ben Gvir intends to make its implementation a central demand in negotiations over Israel’s next government.

A plan built around 1.86 million departures

The numbers leave little room for ambiguity about the scale of Ben Gvir’s ambition. Under the proposal presented on September 3, approximately 250,000 Palestinians would leave Gaza during the first year, 1.11 million within three years and about 1.86 million within seven years. The United Nations currently estimates Gaza’s population at roughly 2.1 million. If the targets outlined by Ben Gvir were ever achieved, the departure program would therefore encompass the overwhelming majority of Palestinians currently living in the territory.

Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, or Jewish Power, calls the program “Disengagement 710.” The name refers both to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and to the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, an attack that fundamentally reshaped Israeli politics and triggered the war that devastated much of the Gaza Strip.

The proposal is part of Ben Gvir’s campaign ahead of Israel’s October 27 election. He has said that establishing a ministry responsible for emigration from Gaza will be among his party’s central demands if it participates in the formation of the next government. That distinction is essential. Israel has not adopted “Disengagement 710” as official government policy. What Ben Gvir has presented is an election and coalition proposal designed to become government policy if the political balance after the election gives his party sufficient leverage.

From political slogan to administrative blueprint

What distinguishes the plan from previous calls for Palestinian emigration is its level of administrative detail. Ben Gvir is no longer speaking only about the principle of Palestinians leaving Gaza. His party has outlined how such a process could be organized by the state. The proposal calls for the establishment of a dedicated government ministry headed by its own minister and director general. It would operate with an independent budget, an international negotiating team and an implementation structure responsible for organizing departures.

Every individual or family seeking to leave would receive a separate case file. The system would cover destination countries, legal documentation, visas, travel arrangements and plans for resettlement. Families would, according to the proposal, be given preference to leave and resettle together. Migration pathways could include employment, education, medical treatment, family reunification and community sponsorship.

Those leaving Gaza would also be offered an assistance package covering travel, initial housing, vocational training, employment support and financial assistance for up to 24 months. Ben Gvir’s party says receiving countries and organizations could receive payments based on the number of people they accept and their success in meeting agreed resettlement targets. Turkey, Ethiopia, Congo and unspecified Arab states have been examined as possible destinations, although there is no indication that these countries have agreed to participate. Without governments prepared to receive Palestinians, the plan cannot operate on the scale Ben Gvir proposes.

Billions for a migration system

The financial architecture underscores how seriously the proposal has been developed as a political program. Otzma Yehudit has proposed an initial Israeli investment of 10 billion shekels to establish and launch the system. The party also envisages an Israeli matching framework of up to 50 billion shekels, conditional on international participation and agreements with receiving countries. The program would therefore require not only political approval inside Israel, but substantial cooperation from foreign governments and international partners.

Those requirements represent one of its largest practical obstacles. Moving hundreds of thousands of people across international borders cannot be achieved through Israeli policy alone. Receiving states would have to grant legal status, approve entry and accept the political consequences of participating in a process involving one of the world’s most contested territories. This is particularly sensitive across the Arab world. Governments in the region have repeatedly opposed permanent Palestinian displacement from Gaza, fearing that movement presented as temporary or humanitarian could ultimately become irreversible.

The word “voluntary” sits at the center of the dispute

Ben Gvir’s proposal repeatedly defines the planned departures as voluntary. That word is critical because the legal and political implications would be fundamentally different if Palestinians genuinely chose to emigrate rather than being forced from the territory. Under the proposal, no person would officially be required to leave. Ben Gvir’s party says departures would occur only when individuals or families chose to participate and when another country had agreed to receive them. 

The problem is that voluntariness is not determined by paperwork alone. The conditions under which a person makes a decision matter. Gaza remains devastated after years of war, displacement and destruction. Most of its population remains displaced, major areas are inaccessible to Palestinian civilians and humanitarian agencies continue to report severe shortages involving shelter, health care, infrastructure and essential supplies.

The United Nations reported in late August that approximately 1.98 million people in Gaza, representing about 94 percent of the population, required shelter assistance or essential nonfood items. More than half of the population faced shelter conditions classified as critical or catastrophic. By September 2, UN humanitarian officials said most of Gaza’s population remained displaced and was concentrated in less than 40 percent of the territory because of access restrictions affecting large parts of the Strip. Those conditions transform the meaning of choice. A person who voluntarily leaves a functioning home, community and economy is making a fundamentally different decision from someone choosing whether to remain amid destroyed neighborhoods, restricted territory, economic collapse and prolonged displacement. That is where the political debate meets international law.

International law does not define force only by physical coercion

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers and deportations of protected persons from occupied territory, regardless of their destination, except under narrowly defined circumstances involving temporary evacuation for civilian security or imperative military reasons. The legal concept of force is broader than physically compelling someone to cross a border. In its 2024 advisory opinion concerning the occupied Palestinian territory, the International Court of Justice stated that a transfer can be considered forcible not only when physical force is used, but also when the people concerned have no genuine choice but to leave.

This does not mean that every Palestinian who independently decides to leave Gaza has been forcibly transferred. Nor does the presentation of Ben Gvir’s proposal by itself establish that its implementation would necessarily violate international law. The circumstances would be decisive. Any legal assessment would have to examine whether people leaving Gaza were genuinely free to remain, whether conditions allowed them realistically to rebuild their lives inside the territory, whether departures were permanent and whether Israeli policy had contributed to circumstances that left residents with no meaningful alternative. Calling a migration program voluntary does not settle those questions.

Gaza’s humanitarian reality cannot be separated from the plan

The proposal arrives at a moment when Gaza remains under extraordinary pressure despite the ceasefire framework established in October 2025. Large-scale fighting has been reduced, but Israeli strikes and military operations have continued, as have Palestinian casualties. Israel says its operations are directed against Hamas members, military infrastructure and attempts by armed groups to rebuild their capabilities. According to figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health cited by the United Nations, 1,303 Palestinians had been reported killed between the announcement of the ceasefire agreement on October 10, 2025, and August 26, 2026. Ongoing incidents have added further casualties since then.

The humanitarian situation remains severe. Shelter materials are limited, reconstruction faces major obstacles, access to significant areas remains restricted and humanitarian organizations continue to report difficulties moving supplies and personnel. Funding is another constraint. By early September, only around 40 percent of the United Nations humanitarian funding request for the year had been met. These conditions are central to any serious examination of a program designed to encourage Palestinians to establish permanent lives elsewhere. The future legality and legitimacy of such a program cannot be assessed independently from the environment in which people would be making the decision to leave.

The destination problem

There is also a fundamental logistical question that political rhetoric cannot resolve: where would 1.86 million people go? Ben Gvir’s proposal assumes that Israel could negotiate agreements with multiple receiving countries. Those states would have to grant Palestinians legal status, provide access to housing and employment and accept potentially large communities over a period of several years. No network of receiving countries capable of absorbing the numbers envisioned in “Disengagement 710” has been announced. That gap is substantial. The first-year target alone would require arrangements for approximately 250,000 people, a population comparable to that of a medium-sized city.

At 1.11 million departures within three years, the program would cease to resemble conventional migration policy. It would become one of the largest organized population movements in the contemporary Middle East. At 1.86 million, its consequences would be historic.

Ben Gvir wants the proposal inside the next government

The political relevance of “Disengagement 710” lies partly in Israel’s coalition system. Small parties can acquire considerable influence when larger political blocs need their parliamentary seats to form a government. Ben Gvir has already demonstrated that a party positioned well to the right of Israel’s traditional political establishment can secure significant power in coalition negotiations.

He is now placing Gaza emigration among the issues on which that leverage could be exercised. The establishment of an Emigration Ministry, according to Ben Gvir, will be among Otzma Yehudit’s leading demands after the election. His strategy is therefore straightforward: transform an ideological position into a coalition condition and then transform that condition into state infrastructure.

Whether he will have the parliamentary strength to achieve that remains uncertain. Whether other parties would accept the proposal is equally unclear. But the political threshold has already shifted. The mass departure of Palestinians from Gaza is no longer being discussed only as an abstract idea by activists at the edge of Israeli politics. A serving cabinet minister has presented numerical targets, funding mechanisms, destination strategies and a government structure intended to implement it.

A debate that extends beyond Ben Gvir

The broader political context is also significant. Ben Gvir is not operating in isolation from a wider Israeli debate over Palestinian emigration from Gaza. The idea gained international prominence after US President Donald Trump publicly proposed in 2025 that Palestinians could be relocated while Gaza was redeveloped. That proposal generated strong opposition from Palestinians, Arab governments and other international actors, and the subsequent US-backed Gaza peace framework instead emphasized rebuilding the territory and encouraging Palestinians to remain.

Ben Gvir has repeatedly cited Trump’s earlier statements as the moment when an idea once treated as politically untouchable became legitimate for mainstream discussion in Israel. The dispute therefore extends beyond one minister and one election document. It concerns the political direction of postwar Gaza and the extent to which population movement could become part of attempts to redefine the territory’s future.

What happens to Gaza if most Palestinians leave?

The largest unanswered question is not where Palestinians would go. It is what Gaza would become if Ben Gvir’s numerical targets were ever approached. A territory from which 1.86 million Palestinians had departed would bear little resemblance to the Gaza Strip that existed before October 7, 2023. Its demographic structure would be transformed, and with it almost every political assumption concerning Palestinian governance, reconstruction and statehood.

Questions of land and property would become unavoidable. Would Palestinians who left retain ownership of homes and land? Would they retain a right to return? Who would administer abandoned areas, and under what authority would reconstruction take place? The proposal does not resolve these fundamental issues. Nor does it provide a clear political framework for Palestinians who remained in Gaza. An emigration ministry could organize departures, but it could not answer the central question of sovereignty.

That is why the plan cannot be understood as migration policy alone. Its consequences would reach directly into the unresolved question of who ultimately controls Gaza, who has the right to live there and whether the territory remains capable of supporting a viable Palestinian society.

The significance of 1.86 million

Ben Gvir’s proposal may never become Israeli government policy. Foreign governments may refuse to participate, coalition partners may reject it, international opposition may prove overwhelming and legal challenges could become formidable. None of those possibilities diminishes the importance of what has now been placed formally into Israel’s political debate. The significance lies in the transition from rhetoric to structure.

There is now a proposed ministry. There are annual targets. There is a multibillion-shekel financing concept. There are potential destination countries, resettlement packages, security screening procedures and a seven-year timetable.

Above all, there is a number: 1.86 million.

That number defines the scale of the political project Ben Gvir is asking Israeli voters and potential coalition partners to consider. The future of Gaza has often been discussed through the language of ceasefires, security zones, reconstruction, disarmament and governance. “Disengagement 710” introduces another possibility with consequences far beyond those debates. It proposes changing Gaza by changing who lives there. Whether that remains an election platform or becomes part of the agenda of Israel’s next government will determine whether one of the most radical ideas to emerge from the war remains a political document or begins moving toward state policy.