Gaza authority warns against Israeli-backed rumors of mass migration

The Gaza Government Media Office cautioned Monday against “misleading rumors” of alleged arrangements for mass Palestinian emigration from the territory, accusing Israel of spearheading a campaign to “undermine national consciousness and weaken Palestinian steadfastness.”

The office said it has been monitoring social media posts and misinformation about supposed mass migration plans driven by “controversial figures” collaborating with foreign entities. The posts promote the idea of Palestinian families traveling via Israel’s Ramon Airport to various countries, the statement said.

“We categorically affirm that this information is entirely false, part of a malicious and systematic campaign to erode our people’s resilience, target their national awareness, and push them toward forced migration under the pressure of suffering and war,” it said.

It accused Israel of backing the posts through fake or biased accounts, misled individuals, or those using forged documents and worthless legal forms.

The statement highlighted Israel’s promotion of “safe migration” funded by the occupation, an attempt to mask “ugly mass displacement plans” that Israel failed to impose by force and now seeks to advance through “exposed soft tactics.”

On Feb. 4, US President Donald Trump, in a joint White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, describing it as a “completely destroyed” area.

Trump suggested that Palestinians should relocate to new settlements in neighboring countries, particularly Egypt and Jordan.

Egypt, Jordan and other Arab as well as European nations and international organizations rejected his plan.

The Gaza Media Office said the few Palestinians who recently left the territory were “known cases” of patients and wounded individuals processed through the Kerem Shalom crossing for medical treatment abroad, not migrants. Claims otherwise are “deliberate lies and distortions,” it said.

The office urged Palestinians to resist “poisonous propaganda” serving Israel’s “strategic Zionist goal” of emptying Palestinian land, a decades-long ambition to realize the “dream of Israel.”

On March 4, an emergency Arab League summit endorsed a five-year $53 billion plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing Palestinians, but Israel and the US rejected it, adhering to Trump’s push for relocation to Egypt and Jordan.

The Israeli army resumed its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18 and has since killed 1,864 people and injured nearly 4,900 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.

More than 51,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.