Israeli lawmakers urge world leaders to accept Gaza refugees amid war

A pair of top Israeli lawmakers urged world leaders to accept Palestinian refugees displaced amid the Israel-Gaza war in an op-ed published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.

Likud member Danny Danon and Yesh Atid member Ram Ben-Barak said leaders have a “moral imperative” to help the people of Gaza by allowing a “limited number” of refugees that wanted to relocate from the war-torn region into their countries.

Likud is the party’s ruling right-wing party, while Yesh Atid is the centrist opposition. Dannon served as Israel’s United Nations ambassador for five years until 2020.

Israel’s bombardment campaign and ground invasion of Gaza have displaced over 1.5 million people, the United Nations estimated.  About a quarter million homes have also been damaged or destroyed, the U.N. said.

The Israeli military has urged Gazans to move from the north of the 140 square-mile territory to the south in order to avoid being stuck in the conflict for weeks, though strikes have continued all over the enclave.

The pair argued that accepting Gazan refugees would be no different from Europe’s efforts to accept refugees from the Syrian and Libyan civil wars in the last decade and similar efforts related to the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

“Countries around the world should offer a haven for Gaza residents who seek relocation,” they wrote. “Countries can accomplish this by creating well-structured and internationally coordinated relocation programs.”

“We simply need a handful of the world’s nations to share the responsibility of hosting Gazan residents,” they continued. “Even if countries took in as few as 10,000 people each, it would help alleviate the crisis.”

Gaza’s only other bordering country, Egypt, has strongly spoken against taking in refugees from the war, claiming that Israel would not allow them back into the territory after the conflict ends.

“We are rejecting the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the explosion of Palestinians to Sinai,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said last month.

Al-Sisi said if refugees flow to Egypt, Sinai could be turned into a launching ground for “terrorist attacks” against Israel, which would in turn blame Egypt for such attacks.

“The threat there is significant because it means the liquidation of this (Palestinian) cause,” al-Sissi said. “It’s important for its people to stay steadfast and exist on its land.”

Jordan has also rejected calls to accept refugees, and GOP politicians in the U.S. have pushed back on similar notions.

“The international community has a moral imperative — and an opportunity — to demonstrate compassion, help the people of Gaza move toward a more prosperous future and work together to achieve greater peace and stability in the Middle East,” Dannon and Ben-Barak wrote.

The Israel-Hamas war began early last month after Hamas militants launched a brutal surprise attack on border settlements, killing over 1,200 Israelis. The responding Israeli air and ground campaign has killed over 11,100 Palestinians, including over 4,600 children.

The U.S. has pushed Israel to implement longer “humanitarian pauses” in fighting in order to help civilians and to help negotiate the release of an estimated 200 hostages held by Hamas. 

Much of the fighting in recent days has focused on the hospitals in Gaza City, which the Israeli military claims are host to secret Hamas command posts. 

President Biden urged Israel not to attack hospitals on Monday.

“My hope and expectation is that there will be less intrusive action relative to hospitals, and we remain in contact with the Israelis,” Biden said. “Also there is an effort to get this pause to deal with the release of prisoners and that’s being negotiated. … So I remain somewhat hopeful, but hospitals must be protected.”