More than 350 rabbis came together to place a full-page ad in the New York Times in which they voiced their opposition to President Donald Trump's planned takeover of Gaza, which the president previously said would allow his administration to turn it into "the Riviera of the Middle East."

The rabbis, joined by other signatories including Jewish creatives and activists, explicitly refer to the removal of Palestinians from Gaza as an ethnic cleansing.

"Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say no to ethnic cleansing!" the ad reads.

Some of the signatories are prominent celebrities, such as Joaquin Phoenix and his siblings Summer and Rain. Other notable personalities to have signed the ad include Ilana Glazer, Eric André, Morgan Spector, Tony Kushner, Jonathan Glazer, Larry Charles, Naomi Klein, Peter Beinart, Tavi Gevison and Wallace Shawn.

The ad is in response to President Donald Trump's proposed plan to relocate almost 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip, allowing his administration to rebuild and develop the Strip following the declaration of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Trump has previously stated that Gaza is a "phenomenal location, on the sea" and that the US has "an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal."

"And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East," he continued, describing what he plans to rebuild the Strip into.

However, when asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to their homes on the Strip, the president said they would not.

"No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing. Much better," Trump told Fox News "Special Report" host Bret Baier. "In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever — it's not habitable. It would be years before it could happen."

The ad was posted in the newspaper at "a critical time as political redlines that were once thought immovable are rapidly shifting as the Trump-Netanyahu alliance takes hold again," Cody Edgerly, director of the In Our Name Campaign, told The Guardian.

Edgerly continued to describe how it was "heartening to witness such a rapid outpouring of support from across the denominational and political spectrum."

"Our message to Palestinians is that you are not alone, our attention has not wavered, and we are committed to fighting with every breath we have to stop ethnic cleansing in Gaza," he told the outlet.

Over the course of Israel's 15-month-long seige in Gaza, over half of all buildings and structures — between 144,000 and 175,000 — within the Strip have been destroyed or damaged. Gaza's Health Ministry places the official death toll from the assault at more than 61,000 and about 1.7 million residents have been displaced, CBC News reported.

"Jewish teaching is clear: Trump is not God and cannot take away Palestinians' inherent dignity or steal their land for a real estate deal. Trump's desire to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza is morally abhorrent. Jewish leaders reject Trump's attempts to wring profit from displacement and suffering and must act to stop this heinous crime," Rabbi Yosef Berman, co-founder of the New Synagogue Project in Washington, DC, told The Guardian.

Tags
Palestine, Israel, Donald trump, Hamas