Haaretz has reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports a plan to confine Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to a so-called “humanitarian city” in Rafah, a plan critics have compared to a concentration camp.
Under the proposal, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be admitted into the camp after undergoing security screening. Once inside, they would be offered food and healthcare, but would not be permitted to leave.
“Give them Ben & Jerry’s, for all I care,” Netanyahu has said, a source told Haaretz.
According to the Israeli daily, Netanyahu does not rule out the possibility of Israel running the site in the short term.
Another senior political official said that a governing system in Gaza “will be responsible for life there,” but that “maybe for the time being, it will be us’.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told journalists on Monday that the plan would initially involve ejecting 600,000 displaced Palestinians from the al-Mawasi area to the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.
According to the source speaking to Haaretz, by separating civilians from Palestinian fighters, the latter would thus be assumed to remain in the northern part of the blockaded strip.
Katz envisages that the entire civilian population of Gaza, over two million people, would eventually be confined to 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.
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.
The proposal has been condemned by rights groups and activists, who have likened it to a concentration camp.
Arab and US funding
The source speaking to Haaretz said that while Netanyahu did not detail the plan’s mechanism, they believe the zone will be under Israeli security control, possibly managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or local Gazan bodies under Israeli oversight.
The source said Israel may not fund the project, but will facilitate the import of tents, construction, and setup.
It will also assist with ongoing maintenance, while the core responsibility is expected to lie with local bodies or a willing American, Arab, or Emirati company.
News of the transfer proposal came as Reuters reported that the US and Israel-backed GHF had proposed creating camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians and “deradicalise” them.
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”.
Transfer out of Gaza
The Israeli official speaking to Haaretz added that if the army eliminates Hamas from northern Gaza, residents will be relocated to the south, with the option to emigrate. He added that some countries have shown willingness to accept Palestinians, though the plan remains undeveloped.
“Israel is working on this,” he said, noting that population displacement was central to talks between Israel and the US ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week.
A separate source familiar with discussions involving Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Dermer made two key demands. The main one was to keep the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza on the agenda.
The second was to avoid US pressure on Israel over truce negotiations with Hamas, including demands to exile senior Hamas members, demilitarise the group, and remove it from governance in Gaza. The source said US officials likely accepted these requests.
Plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians have been condemned by international rights groups as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Source: MEE
