Live in confinement, or leave for ever: Israel's grim offer to terrified Gazans

IDF plan to pack millions into 'humanitarian city' built on the ruins of Rafah is a war crime, say scholars as Palestinians pray for a ceasefire.

- Ruth Michaelson in Istanbul and Aseel Mousa in Cairo

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, 29-year-old Mustafa Daoud has been displaced nine times, forced to flee Israeli bombs that razed his neighbourhood north of Gaza City to the ground.

For the past several months, he has sheltered along with hundreds of thousands of others in al-Mawasi on the edge of the southern city of Khan Younis. In a phone call he told how his life has become about endless queues: hours to get water waiting in the baking sun, or for the chance to use a clay oven to bake a tiny amount of bread so his family can eat a single meal.

"We know nowhere is safe in Gaza," he said. "People are receiving evacuation orders but refusing to leave. They have lost all hope they sit in tents surrounded by tanks. We are exhausted. People are now convinced they will die wherever they are, that they will not be displaced again."

But even this shrinking area, once declared by Israeli forces as a humanitarian zone, is under threat. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz last week said he had instructed the IDF to establish plans for what he called a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of the city of Rafah. The Jerusalem Post, briefed by Katz, said this would be a "tent-and-container enclave".