The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has said the Biden administration must repudiate remarks made by Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

Earlier, Smotrich had told Israeli Army Radio “let’s make the desert bloom” as he discussed two million Palestinians “emigrating” from Gaza.

“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different,” Smotrich had said.

The US-based advocacy organisation CAIR described Smotrich’s remarks as the “latest open call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza”.

“It has always been the Israeli government’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Smotrich just made it official,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.