"In Gaza, Israel was intent on removing Palestinians from the territory in order to annex it. Future prime minister Golda Meir, then the head of Mapai, the precursor of the Labor party, said Israel should retain Gaza while “getting rid of its Arabs.” Minister of Labor Yigal Allon said, “I am prepared to encourage emigration of non-Jews in general.” Israel forcibly expelled three thousand people from Gaza in the weeks after the war. Tens of thousands more left in the year after, some of them taking Israeli financial incentives to emigrate to South America. Prime Minister Eshkol expressed hope that, “precisely because of the suffocation and imprisonment there, maybe the Arabs will move from the Gaza Strip.” He added, “Perhaps if we don’t give them enough water they won’t have a choice, because the orchards will yellow and wither.” Even the Palestinian citizens of Israel were not spared from these schemes: at a 1967 cabinet meeting, Minister Allon recommended “thinning the Galilee [inside the Green Line] of Arabs.”

On October 13, 1967, the cabinet approved a set of “Operational Principles for the Administered Territories.” These prescribed “the departure of a maximum number of Arabs,” while “blocking the entry of Arabs from the outside”; required that “special emphasis is to be placed on the evacuation of the Gaza Strip”; and noted that “the imposition of the Israeli tax system in the territories could play a significant role in encouraging departure across the borders.” "