Israel’s defence minister has instructed the military to bring forward plans to confine all Palestinians in Gaza in a so-called “humanitarian city” south of the enclave – an area which they would not be allowed to leave.
According to a report in Haaretz, Israel Katz told journalists on Monday that the plan would initially involve ejecting 600,000 displaced Palestinians from the al-Mawasi area to an area on the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
Once into this new zone, a security screening would take place. Palestinians who enter the area would not be allowed to leave, Katz said.
He envisages that the entire civilian population of Gaza, over two million people, would eventually all be confined into this new “city”.
He said that the new city would be built, if conditions permit, during a proposed 60-day pause in the war currently being negotiated by Israel and Hamas. It will include the establishment of four aid distribution centres within the area.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on
Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The defence minister said that the Israeli military would secure the perimeter of the site, but would not run it. He said Israel was seeking international partners to manage the site, but did not elaborate on who they were.
He also said that his ambition was to encourage Palestinians to “voluntarily” leave the Gaza Strip to other countries – echoing US President Donald Trump’s plans to ethnically cleanse the enclave.
In February, Trump said that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip, eject the Palestinian population to other countries and turn the enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Katz told reporters that Israel’s aims included targeting Hamas leadership, seizing territory, demilitarising the Gaza Strip and implementing “the emigration plan, which will happen”.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was leading efforts to find countries to take Palestinians.
An official told Haaretz that Israel does not expect plans to displace Palestinians to third countries to go ahead. The official said that while Israel had approached several countries on the matter, no state had agreed to the proposals.
‘Managing and mobilising’ population
Katz’s plans were revealed on the same day that Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the Israeli military, said that mobilising and concentrating the Palestinian population in Gaza were not among the military’s operational objectives.
Haaretz previously reported in May that “managing and mobilising the civilian population” was one of the key Israeli war objectives, according to orders presented to commanders.
It also came on the same day that Reuters reported that the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) had proposed creating camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians and “deradicalise” them.
The spy, private equity baron and ghost of a Trump donor: The revolving door behind a Gaza mercenary firm
Read More »
Reuters reported that the $2bn plan was submitted to the Trump administration and recently discussed in the White House.
The camps are described as “large-scale” and “voluntary” in the plan, and places that Palestinians can “temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so.”
It’s not clear if these “humanitarian transit areas” are the same as the “humanitarian city” announced by Katz.
In a statement sent to Middle East Eye, GHF said it was “not planning for or implementing Humanitarian Transit Areas now or at any point in the future” and said Reuters’ original report was “false”.
“The presentation they cite is not a GHF document and has nothing to do with our organization or mission, period. It is disturbing that they falsely reported this disinformation despite repeated denials,” said Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for GHF.
“Our sole focus remains on scaling up food aid operations to meet the urgent and overwhelming needs of the population in Gaza.”
It was revealed over the weekend that a consulting firm involved in the GHF entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to develop the initiative and modelled a plan to “relocate” Palestinians from Gaza as part of its work.
A Financial Times investigation has revealed its work included financial modelling for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, commissioned by Israeli backers, with one scenario envisioning the “voluntary relocation” of Palestinians from the enclave.
This would have involved paying out “relocation packages” to 500,000 people worth $9,000 per person to encourage people to leave the territory.
The model assumed a quarter of Palestinians would opt to leave Gaza, with three-quarters of them unlikely to return.
It estimated the cost of expulsion of Palestinians to be $23,000 cheaper, per Palestinian, than the costs of providing support to them in Gaza during reconstruction.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, this side of the operation was conducted without the knowledge of senior management and against their instructions.
