Obviously Palestinians were displaced and that needs to be addressed, but ethnic cleansing is a tough sell. Their population has multiplied by 20x since then.
Forced displacement due to the mass destruction of all facilities in an area consists exactly in ethnic cleansing.
Ethnic cleansing means : systemic removal of a group or person by another group of person in an area. And it's exactly what's happening.
It makes no sense to say it's neither a genocide nor ethnic cleansing if the population grows. Same as saying there were no genocide or ethnic cleansing in Rwanda or Bosnia since the population has grown.
I mean by that definition, USA's immigration enforcement constitutes ethnic cleansing. I guess I just question your moral authority to second guess Israel's handling of their very unique situation.
Indeed, it is ethnic cleansing.
This situation isn't unique at all. Actually, it's quite common in History. The same happened to Algeria with the French colonization.