Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz has said there are no plans to deport Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, adding that it would coordinate its plans for hundreds of thousands of refugees in the city of Rafah with neighbouring Egypt, Reuters reports.

Katz said Israel had no alternative but to enter Rafah as fighters from Hamas were using the city as cover.

“We have no intention to deport any Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip,” Katz said, adding that Israel did not want to rule Gaza after it ends its fight against Hamas.

“Israel does not want to hurt any Palestinian civilians, so we move them to safe zones while the Hamas are trying to prevent it. We have no intention to rule the civilian life in Gaza after the war. Our goal is to ensure that Gaza will be dematerialised,” he said.

When asked where the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the city would go, Katz suggested that once Gaza’s second city Khan Younis had been cleared of Hamas fighters, they could return there or to the West of the enclave.

“We will deal [with] Rafah after we speak with Egypt about it. We’ll coordinate it, we have a peace accord with them and we will find a place which will not harm the Egyptians,” Katz said. “We will coordinate everything and not harm their interests.”