Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Hussein says Israel aiming to empty Gaza

Jordan Foreign Minister Ayman Hussein Safadi has accused Israel of aiming to cleanse Gaza of its people through an “indiscriminate and brutal offensive” in response to the October 7 Hamas attack.

Speaking at the Doha Forum held in the Qatari capital on Sunday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister said Israel was implementing a policy of pushing the Palestinians out of Gaza through a war that he said meets the “legal definition of genocide”.

“What we are seeing in Gaza is not just simply the killing of innocent people and the destruction of their livelihoods, but a systematic effort to empty Gaza of its people,” Safadi said.

“We have not seen the world yet come to the place we should come to … an unequivocal demand for ending this war, a war that is within the legal definition of genocide.”

Safadi argued that Israel’s avowed goal of destroying Hamas was belied by the extent of destruction among Gaza civilians, which he described as “indiscriminate”.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), also accused Israel of planning a mass expulsion of people from Gaza into Egypt.

“The United Nations and several member states, including the United States, have firmly rejected forcibly displacing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said in his address at the Doha Forum.