Have there ever been any programs or other efforts from Israel just to grant a citizenship for "safe" Gazans?

Question

By "safe" I mean not dangerous: not willing to commit or support the war action against Israel and ready to integrate into society enough like knowing Hebrew. I understand that somebody calling to kill or drive away all citizens of a country is unlikely to be offered the citizenship of that country.

It could probably be less controversial method to reduce the size of hostile Gaza population than just by bombings. The size of Gaza population is 2,375,259 and the size of Israeli population is about 9,849,440. Other things aside, that much a country likely could just integrate.

Answer 1

• About 20% of Israeli population are already Palestinians.
• Some Palestinians get Israeli citizenship via marriage (e.g., this recent article mentions a relative of a high Hamas official married to an Israeli Bedouin.)
• Prior to the Intifadas and construction of the separation barrier, many West Bank and Gaza Palestinians had permits for working in Israel.
• The Palestinian population is growing rapidly - e.g., at the moment UNRWA counts nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees, mostly descendants of about 750 thousands of refugees from pre-1948 Israel. This does not include the Palestinians indigenous to the West Bank and Gaza. So the solution is not realistic.
• Finally, and this is the most important part - resettling of some of the Palestinians in Israel is one of the contentious points in the Peace negotiations within the Oslo framework, known as the right of return.

Remarks: Regarding the status of the territories formally annexed by Israel:
East Jerusalem
The Residents of east Jerusalem has a streamlined access to citizenship (see also here):

Almost all of the Arabic-speaking population of Jerusalem lives in East Jerusalem, around 350,000 people. Prior to 1967, East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. After the war, Jerusalem was annexed by Israel, but most East Jerusalem residents did not choose to become citizens, during the limited period of time with this was offered. Since then, there have periods Israel has not allowed residents to apply for citizenship in most cases, and periods in which they could apply. Today, East Jerusalem residents can apply for Israeli citizenship through a process that is less time-consuming and challenging than it had been in prior years. Non-Israeli citizen East Jerusalem residents (the vast majority) receive permanent residency status—a different category than citizen that entitles them to some rights but not others, as described in the table.

Golan Heights
The inhabitants of the Golan Heights (who are mostly Druze) were given the Israeli citizenship when the area was annexed. Some opted out out of fear that the area might return back to Syria, and they would be punish for disloyalty.

Palestinians vs. Israeli Arabs
In response to comments: Palestinian identity is a complex issue - some of the non-Jewish population in Israel clearly do not identify themselves as Palestinians, notably Druze and Negev Bedouins. Whether the majority of the Arab population in Israeli Arab citizens should be considered Palestinians, because of their close kinship with those in West Bank and Gaza or whether they should be seen as something different is a matter of debate and their own self-identification. My first comment is thus limited to the terminology used by Wikipedia article on Demographics of Israel:

21.1% (around 2,080,000 people) are Israeli citizens classified as Arab, some identifying as Palestinian, and including Druze, Circassians, all other Muslims, Christian Arabs, Armenians (which Israel considers "Arab")

Answer 2

There is a process for permanent residents of Israel to become citizens. It is a long and drawn-out process, potentially taking years, much longer than the process of citizenship by immigration for Jews or those with Jewish ancestry.

There is also a process for refugees (including those from Palestine) to seek asylum in Israel and thus gain permanent residency. They could then seek citizenship after meeting the requirements for that process. Approximately 21% of Israel's citizen population are Palestinian Arabs, whether they (or their parents/grandparents) had been incorporated into the new 1948 state or whether they had gained citizenship later on.¹ They enjoy full rights of citizenship and are equal under the law to Jewish (and other non-Arab) citizens.²

Therefore, yes, in theory there is a mechanism for Palestinians, including Gazans, to become Israeli citizens, but as far as I can tell, Israel is making no effort to make this any easier of a process. In fact, as other answerers have pointed out, Israel's right wing (which is currently in power) is adamantly against establishing a right of return for Palestinians who lived in British Palestine before 1948. Therefore, in practice, it is extremely unlikely that a Palestinian from Gaza would be able to obtain Israeli citizenship under "normal" circumstances, and effectively impossible during wartime.

---

¹This figure does not include Palestinians living in East Jerusalem since 1948, who are considered permanent residents but not citizens (unless they have separately obtained citizenship), nor does it include Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza, who have no legal status in Israel and live under Israeli martial law, Palestinian civil law, or the Hamas terrorist regime, depending on where exactly they live, all of which are oppressive and brutal to varying degrees.

²There are several Arab political parties within the Israeli legislature, and during the brief period a couple of years ago in which the political center took control of the government from Netanyahu, they were even a part of the governing coalition. There is also an Arab sitting on the Israeli Supreme Court. That being said, it is not the case that Israeli Arabs do not experience racism or discrimination. For instance, they are often ethnically profiled by police forces, and there is a clear income gap between Arab and Jewish families. However, the Israeli Arab experience is significantly different from the oppressive occupation faced by West Bank residents.

Answer 3

The problem with this idea is Israel's Zionist tenets.

If they admit large numbers of Palestinians, the Israeli state will cease to be controlled and dominated by a majority who are so-called Jewish in origin.

They already have a large minority of so-called Arab Israelis, who are non-Jewish in origin and were absorbed in 1948 on the founding of Israel upon the territory where these Arab Israelis already lived (or their ancestors were).

The demographics are also worsening from the Zionist perspective. The Arab Israelis are successful at reproducing and increasing their numbers, whereas the Jewish Israelis are less so, and are propped up in significant numbers by new migrant settlers.

(EDIT: per the comments, the birth rates between Jewish and Arab Israelis may have converged more in recent years, but it remains true to say that the demographic balance is still a significant concern of Zionists. The issue of Palestinian - non-Israeli - fecundity is also a concern for any proposal that involves absorbing the Palestinians.)

The Zionists also tend to have a strong racial or heritable flavour to their definition of being Jewish, so that conversions to Judaism are not necessarily satisfactory to them.

The actual amount of slack between the tipping point is much smaller than nine million.

Answer 4

The framing of this question assumes a Western liberal mindset, where learning the language, being adequately educated, integrating and having a willingness to be a productive law-abiding citizen are often considered sufficient conditions to allow one to immigrate to the country.

Israel does not operate this way. It is an expressly Jewish state with a unique concern with its demographic balance. It does not define itself as a "state of its citizens" as most Western countries do, but rather fundamentally associates itself with an ethnic group.

This is why the right of return of Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed in the Nakba is considered a non-starter for Israelis in negotiations. It is the one thing that the Israelis have never and will never budge on, as it threatens the Jewishness of the state. Those interested in entry to Israel—including those with legitimate ties to the land like the indigenous Palestinians—are not judged by the "content of their character" (Martin Luther King) but their Jewish genealogy.

Answer 5

In early 2023 Israel passed a law to revoke citizenship of Arabs involved in attacks.

Israel has passed a law to revoke the citizenship of Israeli Arabs convicted of terrorism and who get financial aid from the Palestinian Authority (PA). [...]

The monthly stipends offered by the PA to Palestinian prisoners who have carried out attacks on Israelis, or their families, have long been highly contentious.

Israel describes them as a "pay for slay" policy which encourages violence.

So the law you look for exists in a sense, but "in reverse".

Answer 6

The main question you should be asking yourself is why? Why would Israel want to absorb anyone from any neighboring country?

Israel has no interest in Gaza, neither the territory nor the population. It doesn't need it and doesn't want it. Why would it want to grant anything to anyone there?

Similarly, you don't see anyone asking "why doesn't US just give all the Canadians its citizenship". Gaza is it's own country, with it's own population, it's own government, and it's own army. They're at war with Israel, have been for a very long time, and there's no reason for Israel to give any concessions to anyone there.

If anything, you would want to ask why Egypt doesn't want to absorb Gaza, and didn't want even when it controlled it (between the wars of 1948 and 1967). As opposed to Jordan, which annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem and granted its citizenship to the residents, Egypt never annexed Gaza and never gave Gazans any rights. Egypt also refused to accept Gaza back as part of the peace treaty with Israel in 1979.