Egypt and Germany are in agreement that Gaza and the West Bank belong to Palestinians, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during a visit to Cairo today, Reuters reported.

She added that the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza cannot continue and concrete measures are needed now to ensure aid gets to the people there.

Baerbock is expected to visit the Rafah Crossing today to see first hand the movement of aid into the besieged Gaza Strip. She has warned that more aid needs to be allowed into Gaza, especially northern areas, where no medical aid has been allowed in since 26 December.

Israeli occupation authorities continue to deny humanitarian aid requests to coordinate aid drop offs to hospitals in the north, UN OCHA has reported.

Speaking in Berlin yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer said Germany opposes controversial proposals put forward by Israeli far-right ministers to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza.

“Gaza belongs to the Palestinians, they must not be driven out of Gaza, there must be no new settlement, no renewed Israeli occupation of Gaza, I think we are very clear on that,” he stressed.

This comes as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proposed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza.

Concerns about forced relocations are not a recent development, but in fact began with the first order for Gazans in the north to evacuate to the southern strip just a week into the conflict, which began with a cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas on 7 October.

Those fears gained more and more momentum as nearly 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip were displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

The continuing onslaught not only left the densely populated besieged strip in ruins but also pushed Gazans to so-called “safe zones” established by Israel in the southern strip, resulting in overcrowding and ongoing attacks near border points.