Israel plows a plan to build what criticisms described as a “concentration camp” for the Palestinians on the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, faced with a growing reaction in the country and abroad.
The suggestion, for the first time by the Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, earlier this month, plans an area which could accommodate an initial group of some 600,000 Palestinians already moved to Gaza, which would then be extended to accommodate the entire pre-war population of the enclave of some 2.2 million people. It would be managed by international forces and would have no presence of Hamas.
Once in the “humanitarian city” of Katz de Katz, the Palestinians would not be authorized to go to other regions of Gaza, but would rather be encouraged to “emigrate voluntarily” in other unpertified countries, said the minister.
Katz’s plan has already received important criticism. Labeled a “concentration camp” by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and illegal by Israeli lawyers, he was even criticized by the army who will be responsible for the implementation, with the military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, describing it as “necessity” with “more holes than cheese”.
Internationally, a British minister said that he was “dismayed” by the plan, while Austria and Germany’s foreign ministers expressed their “concern”. The United Nations said that it was “firmly against” the idea.
But members of the Israeli government have defended the idea and the leaks continue to emerge in the Israeli media on the debate surrounding it within the government – with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking for a plan that was faster and less expensive than a plan presented by the Israeli army.
An Tel Aviv Tribune survey revealed that Israel has recently increased the number of demolitions he is leading to Rafah, perhaps paving the way to the “humanitarian city”.
Long planned
Depropulating Gaza has long been an ambition of some of the hardest groups of settlers in Israel, who believe they have a divine mandate to occupy the Palestinian territory. The Israeli far right has been encouraged to move forward with the idea that US President Donald Trump suggested in February that the Gaza Palestinians could be moved and moved elsewhere.
Since then, Netanyahu and the Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich have both supported travel calls.
When Netanyahu announced in May the creation of the controversial GHF supported by the United States, a body intended to provide limited aid to the enclave that its forces have been going since early March, Netanyahu refers to a future “sterile zone” in which the Gaza population would be moved, where they would have authorized aid and food.
Later the same month, Smotrich, which criticized the current plan as too expensive but is not opposed to the idea in principle, also suggested that plans were underway to push the population of Gaza in a camp.
Addressing a “settlement conference” in occupied West Bank, Smotrich told its audience that what remained of Gaza would be “completely destroyed” and that its population had supported in a “humanitarian zone” near the Egyptian border, foreshadowing the language used by Katz.
Part of the Israeli plan
Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flashenberg told Tel Aviv Tribune that – for the Israeli government – there was merit in terms of both security point of view, and “from the point of view of Ethnically Cleaning” of Gaza, and the supply of a final objective that Israeli leaders could define as a success.
“If I understand correctly, certain parts of the military consider the elimination of civilians from (non -Israeli parties) of Gaza and concentrating them in a single space as the first stage ideal in the location and elimination of Hamas,” said Flashenberg about the Palestinian group that Israel has not eliminated in 21 months of conflict, despite the murder of more than 58,000 people.
Flashenberg added that the plan would effectively create an “ethnic cleaning terminal”, from which, once people have been separated from their original houses, “this facilitates them elsewhere”.
“Of course, that complicates the cease-fire negotiations, but then what?” Flashenberg said, referring to the current talks aimed at causing an initial 60-day ceasefire. “Nothing has really changed. It is possible, of course, that with work on the current concentration camp, Hamas could always accept the ceasefire and hope that things could change.”
“This is part of all their mentality,” said a member of the Israeli Parliament, Aida Touma-Suleiman, said a member of the Israeli Parliament. “They really believe that they can do anything: that they can move all these people as if they were not even humans. Even if imprisonment only makes the first 600,000 people suggested by Katz is inconceivable. How can you do it without it leading to a kind of massacre? ”
“That they even speak of criminal acts without each state of the world condemning them is dangerous,” she added.
But lawyers in Israel have questioned the legality of the move. Military lawyers have “raised concerns” that Israel could face accusations of forced displacement, and an open letter from a number of Israeli legal specialists is more explicit, slamming the proposal as “manifestly illegal”.
‘Nothing humanitarian’
According to the United Nations, at least 1.9 million people, around 90% of the Gaza pre-war population, were moved as a result of Israeli attacks. Many have been moved several times.
Earlier this month, Amnesty concluded that, despite the militarized delivery of limited aid in the band, Israel continues to use famine as a weapon of war. According to the Rights Agency, malnutrition and famine of Gaza children and families remain widespread, the health system which could generally take care of them pushed to Breaking Point by Israel.
“The humanitarian city? I despise all these euphemisms. There is nothing humanitarian on this subject. It is completely inhuman,” said Yossi Mekelberg, member of the main council of Chatham House. “There would be nothing humanitarian under conditions that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be pushed in or on the idea that you can only leave in another country.”
“This must be condemned and there must be consequences,” he continued. “This is not true when people say that there is no more international community. If you exchange with Israel, cooperate militarily or diplomatically with him, you have a lever effect. The United States has a lever effect, the EU (European Union) has a lever effect. All these actors do. “
“Haussing your shoulders by raising your shoulders and saying that it is an anarchy,” he concluded, “you put the keys to Smotrich, Katz and Netanyahu and saying that you can do nothing.”
