Qatar’s Shura Council has condemned comments from Israel calling for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced from their native land.

Qatar’s Shura Council voiced their denunciation of Israeli rhetoric about displacing Palestinian civilians during its weekly ordinary session at Tamim bin Hamad Hall on Monday.

According to a Qatar News Agency report, Council members were unanimous in decrying Israel’s calls for the forced displacement of Palestinians as reprehensible remarks that are tantamount to collective punishment.

The Council also stressed that such rhetoric violates international human rights laws.

This comes as recent inflammatory rhetoric from two senior Israeli officials sparked international outpours of condemnation against calls to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.

Speaking to Army Radio on December 31, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist Party, said there needs to be a national push “to encourage emigration” of Palestinians out of Gaza.

The ultranationalist, a strong proponent of increasing the number of illegal Israel settlements in the besieged Strip, also said Israel should aim to decrease the number of Palestinians in Gaza from two million to 200,000 or 100,000 people instead.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs‘ latest flash update published on Monday, out of Gaza’s over two million population, at least 1.9 million people have been forced into internal displacement by Israel’s relentless bombardment.

UN OCHA further said 1.4 million IDPs are seeking shelter within 155 UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees shelter facilities across all of Gaza’s governorates.

However, amid the sheer strain of the worsening humanitarian crisis, these facilities are fast exceeding their maximum capacity.

National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, also an Israeli ultra-far-right radical, said his country’s renewed onslaught of the enclave presents his occupying nation with “an opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Echoing Qatar’s denunciation of such deplorable remarks, America’s State Department Spokesperson, Mathew Miller, said in a statement published on January 3 that “this rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible”.

According to Miller, his country’s stance is that the Occupied Palestinian territories are the rightful land of the Palestinian people.

Speaking of the enclave’s future, he added, “It will remain Palestinian land. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world”.

Qatar’s Shura Council has been historically vocal against Israel’s flouting of international human rights laws.

In the aftermath of Israel resuming its ground offensive against Gaza, the speaker of the Shura Council, Hassan bin Abdullah Al Ghanim, denounced Israel for its indiscriminate aggression against Palestinian civilians.

On October 18, during an emergency conference of the Arab Parliamentary Union held in Baghdad, Al Ghanim said “Israeli occupation forces [disregard] all humanitarian laws and international norms, especially laws protecting children, women, and civilians during times of war,” a Shura Council press release reported.

Latest figures from Palestine’s Health Ministry estimate the Gaza death toll since October 7 stands at at least 23,084 people. It is thought that 9,600 of those killed were children.