A long-buried nightmare has clawed its way back to the heart of Israeli far-right politics. This delusion refuses to fade, no matter how many times it has been condemned, debunked or disguised in diplomatic rhetoric. It is the old vision of “transfer,” a sterilized label for a dark, decades-old objective: the forced removal of Palestinians from their land. What was once a fringe ideology has now become mainstream policy, championed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly radical and emboldened coalition.

The vocabulary may have changed, but the intent remains the same: to ethnically engineer the landscape of Palestine and reshape its demography under the pretext of security and national interest. But there is nothing secure about driving a population into statelessness. There is nothing legitimate about starving a people, demolishing their homes and denying them the right to exist on their own land.

In Gaza, this doctrine has been weaponized into policy. With every missile strike, every decimated neighborhood and every hospital overwhelmed with the injured and dying, the outlines of this grotesque vision become clearer. Israeli leaders talk openly of “voluntary migration,” while simultaneously making Gaza unlivable. This is not policy — it is premeditated displacement. It amounts to ethnic cleansing.

The evidence is not just in UN reports or press releases — it is in the images seared into the global conscience

Hani Hazaimeh

The humanitarian toll is staggering. According to the Arab League, the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has risen to more than 52,500, with injuries surpassing 118,000 since October 2023. The majority of the victims are women and children. Thousands more remain buried under rubble, uncounted and unnamed. Hospitals have been bombed, schools obliterated and entire families annihilated in their homes. The burned bodies of children, charred beyond recognition, are not collateral damage — they are the physical remnants of a doctrine that sees Palestinian existence as expendable.

No one can claim ignorance. The evidence is not just in UN reports or press releases — it is in the images seared into the global conscience. A mother clutching the lifeless bodies of her twins. A paramedic breaking down after pulling his daughter’s corpse from the wreckage. Rows of white-shrouded bodies, lined up in makeshift morgues or open fields because cemeteries are full.

This is a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions. And yet, the world’s most powerful nations continue to offer cover for Israel’s actions. The US, the EU and others have failed not only morally but strategically, emboldening a regime that is now openly toying with the idea of permanent population removal — an idea once considered politically radioactive but now disturbingly palatable in some circles.

This is a humanitarian catastrophe. And yet, the world’s most powerful nations continue to offer cover for Israel’s actions

Hani Hazaimeh

Israel’s far-right ministers speak of a “solution” that requires Palestinians to leave, to be absorbed by Egypt, Jordan or anywhere else but here. It is the logic of colonialism reanimated in the 21st century. It is not just an attack on Gaza — it is an assault on international law, human dignity and the very idea that people have a right to their homeland.

The Palestinian cause is not just about politics — it is about humanity. It is about a people denied the right to live in peace, to raise their children without fear, to mourn their dead without hearing the roar of jets overhead. The dream of a two-state solution fades further with each airstrike, replaced by a nightmare of perpetual occupation and suffering.

The international community must wake up to the reality that what is happening in Gaza is not a war — it is a campaign of forced disappearance. This is genocide under a different name, carried out with digital precision and bureaucratic coldness. And behind it stands a political fantasy resurrected from the darkest corners of Israeli settler ideology.

The question now is not whether we see what is happening. It is whether we are willing to act.

Because history has a long memory. It will remember who stood for justice — and who watched silently as an entire people were driven into the abyss.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh