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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Steffie Banatvala

‘Humanitarian city’ in Gaza a concentration camp for Palestinians: former Israeli PM

Under the current plan, some 600,000 Palestinians would be moved first to the detention camp in Rafah from the Muwasi area - (Getty)

Plans to force Palestinians into a “humanitarian city” in Gaza would be akin to a concentration camp, a former Israeli prime minister has said.

Ehud Olmert claimed construction of the camp would mark an escalation in the conflict and that he now considers Israel to be committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

Claims that the city would protect Palestinians are not credible after ministers’ calls to “cleanse” Gaza and build Israeli settlements, Olmert told the Guardian.

Plans to prepare for a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah emerged in a briefing given by Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz last week.

The plan would see 2 million Palestinians, already forced into an area just a fifth of Gaza’s original size, further trapped.

Once inside the city, Katz said residents would not be allowed to leave, according to sources briefed on that meeting.

Mourners pray next to the bodies of Palestinians killed in morning Israeli strikes on tents sheltering displaced people (Reuters)

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert said. “If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn’t yet happened.”

The former prime minister argued that this was the “the inevitable interpretation” of any plan to build a camp for thousands of people.

Under the current plan, some 600,000 Palestinians would be moved first to the detention camp in Rafah from the Muwasi area — a zone in the centre of Gaza already earmarked as a “humanitarian area,” even though it has been bombed. In the long term the city is set to house the entire Palestinian population.

An international force would manage the camp, while the Israeli army would secure the perimeter, Katz reportedly told reporters.

However, officials briefed on the plans say there are no real details.

(Alicja Hagopian/The Independent)

Olmert did not consider Israel's current actions as ethnic cleansing because he believed evacuating civilians to keep them safe from fighting is allowed under international law. He also pointed out that Palestinians had returned to areas after military operations had ended.

“When they build a camp where they [plan to] ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians],” said Olmert, who led Israel from 2006 to 2009.

“It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”

His intervention comes after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pitched the idea to US president Donald Trump last week in Washington DC, where he left without a ceasefire deal.

The camp could be an obstacle in already faltering ceasefire negotiations, Israeli media reported.

(Alicja Hagopian/The Independent)

Another proposal seen by The Independent, describes the building of sprawling camps in the coastal south region of Gaza, as well as in Egypt and Cyprus, called “Humanitarian Transition Areas”.

While Israel insists these emigrations would be voluntary and denies violating international law, human rights experts said they would likely constitute war crimes and, coupled with the forcible transfer of the population south into the “humanitarian city”, would amount to “really grave atrocity crimes”.

Olmert spoke on the day funerals were held in the West Bank for two Palestinians, one of whom was an American citizen, killed by Israeli settlers.

The deaths of the two Palestinians were the latest after a violent campaign of intimidation that forced villagers to flee their homes.

Referring to extremist cabinet ministers who supported violence in the West Bank and Gaza, Olmert said: “These guys are the enemy from within.”

The anger such extremism is fuelling against Israel goes beyond antisemitism and more international pressure is needed to shift Israeli attitudes, he said, adding that Israeli media should be reporting on violence against Palestinians.

(ACLED)

Olmert, who initially supported Israel's campaign against Hamas after the October 7 attacks, later condemned the government for abandoning peace talks and committing what he now calls war crimes, saying he was “ashamed and heartbroken” that self-defence had turned into something else.

He believes these crimes were due to negligence, not intentional brutality, and blames the military for turning a blind eye to civilian deaths.

Olmert is working with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa to push for a two-state solution, which he still believes is possible.

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