There is no plan to force Palestinians to leave Gaza, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says, after two Israeli ministers floated proposals for the mass removal of Palestinians from the coastal territory.
"I can tell you categorically there is no plan of the Israelis to displace people out of Gaza against their will," Huckabee told reporters on Saturday in Turmus Ayya, a Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
"There is an open-mindedness (that) if people wish to leave that they should have the right to leave.
"To incarcerate them in a place they don't want to be should be an absolute, I think, just disgrace."
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday there was "no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration".
Far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Thursday outlined a seven-year plan for removing Gaza's population through what he described as "voluntary emigration".
But Huckabee said "nobody" was suggesting there would be forced displacement.
"The Israelis are not. The Americans are certainly not. I know of no one who supports that," he said.
Huckabee met with Palestinian Americans, including relatives of US citizens killed by Israeli settlers, in Turmus Ayyaon on Saturday.
The visit comes as settler violence, and what is widely perceived as the Israeli government's inaction, has increasingly drawn international condemnation, including from US allies.
The Israeli government has condemned settler violence, though perpetrators are rarely arrested and even less frequently prosecuted.
Washington has not criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the violence, though it has called for perpetrators to be prosecuted, with Huckabee labelling them as terrorists.
Huckabee described his meeting in Turmus Ayya, where most of the town's Palestinian residents are US citizens, as constructive.
While Huckabee, a Baptist minister and longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, has previously called for violent settlers to be prosecuted, he also says he believes they represent a minority of the settler community, which numbers about 750,000.
Some three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, with tens of thousands estimated to be American citizens.
Palestinians in the West Bank have faced a surge in settler violence while their freedoms have been increasingly curtailed under military occupation since Netanyahu's coalition, the most right-wing in Israel's history, came to power in late 2022.
In Turmus Ayya, Palestinians are facing what Mayor Nawwaf Zaghoul said were constant settler attacks.
About 80 per cent of the Palestinian town's residents hold US citizenship, he said.
Israeli settlements have been established around the town, including Shiloh, which Huckabee has visited twice since 2025.
Huckabee, the first evangelical Christian to serve as US Ambassador to Israel, refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, its biblical name, which is used by the Israeli government but has not been adopted by the US.
Huckabee told reporters in Turmus Ayya it was in the Israeli government's interest to take action against those carrying out "criminal behaviour and terrorism", and that a "tiny group of little marauders" were damaging the country's reputation.
He said he had told Palestinian Americans the US embassy had no power or authority to take action and could only seek to influence and call attention to issues.
At least six Palestinian Americans have been killed in the West Bank either by the Israeli military or settlers since 2024.
Australian Associated Press
