Proposal to force Gaza population into camp

Israel's defence minister has laid out plans to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah, in a scheme that legal experts and academics described as a blueprint for crimes against humanity.

- Emma Graham-Harrison

Israel Katz said he had ordered the country's military to prepare for establishing the camp, which he called a "humanitarian city", Haaretz newspaper reported.

Palestinians would go through "security screening" before entering, and once inside would not be allowed to leave, Katz said at a briefing for Israeli journalists.

Israeli forces would control the perimeter of the site and initially "move" 600,000 Palestinians into the area, Katz said, mostly people currently displaced in the al-Mawasi area. Eventually the entire population of Gaza would be housed there, and Israel aims to implement "the emigration plan, which will happen", Haaretz quoted him saying.

Since Donald Trump suggested at the start of the year that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to "clean out" the strip, Israeli politicians including the prime minister, Benjamin enthusiastically Netanyahu, have promoted forced deportation, often presenting it as a US project.

Katz's scheme breaks international law, said Michael Sfard, one of Israel's leading human rights lawyers. It also directly contradicted claims made hours earlier by the office of Israel's military chief, which said in a letter that Palestinians were only displaced inside Gaza for their own protection.