Rafah Ghetto: The Israeli Defense Minister's Dream of Displacing Palestinians

Amid indirect negotiations between the occupying state and Hamas to reach a truce and ceasefire, Israel continues its fierce war, imposing its control over approximately 70% of the Gaza Strip. This point constitutes a fundamental disagreement that hinders mediation efforts, particularly regarding maps and the redeployment or withdrawal of occupation forces from areas under its control.

The occupying state is planning to impose a plan during the 60-day ceasefire period, during which detention camps will be established in the ruins of Rafah. The plan aims to push Palestinians toward Rafah and imprison them there, paving the way for their emigration.

The Israeli plan presented in the negotiations leaves the entire city of Rafah under occupation, a ghost town, effectively paving the way for the implementation of a policy of forced displacement. It encroaches on nearly 40% of the Gaza Strip's area, with Israeli control extending to as far as three kilometers from the border in some areas. This prevents more than 700,000 Palestinians from returning to their homes, forcibly displacing them to displacement centers in Rafah, under the label of a "humanitarian city," which has nothing to do with humanity.

The maps Israel is presenting in the negotiations are nothing more than a joke, as the Morag axis has been transformed into the "new Philadelphi axis," dividing Gaza in two. Just as the generals' previous plan aimed to encircle the northern Gaza Strip and sever its connection to Israel, the occupation's center of gravity has now been shifted from the northern Gaza Strip to the Morag axis.

Any insistence on establishing a detention camp, or what is falsely called a "humanitarian camp," would mean leaving the Rafah crossing under Israeli control, allowing Israel to move through it and impose its security control. Netanyahu will not agree to a return to the previous ceasefire lines, as his government would immediately collapse if he did.

In this context, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz is essentially promoting the government's idea of establishing detention camps as a tool for implementing a policy of forced displacement, a clear crime under international law.

More than a year ago, Katz, then foreign minister, was invited to a conference of European Union foreign ministers to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He surprised the audience by showing a video he had produced nearly ten years earlier, presenting a fictional project he called "Gaza Island," an artificial island in the sea to which all of the Strip's residents would be relocated.

This project, which completely ignored the geographic and political reality, was nothing more than a thinly veiled cover for the idea of ethnic cleansing: isolating the population, denying them the right of return, and placing them under Israeli naval and air control. Katz ignored the project's catastrophic humanitarian consequences, presenting it as an "innovative solution."

With the "Gaza Island" impossible to implement, Katz revived the idea in a new form: the Rafah Ghetto.

The new idea calls for the establishment of a massive camp on the ruins of Rafah, where approximately one million Palestinians will be gathered within a closed, walled area, denied freedom of movement, under direct Israeli military control, and without any real Palestinian leadership or international oversight.

Although the project is presented under the banner of "humanitarian relief," its essence is control, isolation, and the deprivation of basic rights. Even international aid, supposedly neutral, will be entirely subject to Israeli oversight and timing.

The European Union, despite its initial objections, expressed its willingness to provide aid. However, the implementation of the "Rafah ghetto" will place it, along with other donors, before a direct moral and legal responsibility: Will they be contributing to the construction of a mass detention camp?

Katz, for his part, sees this idea as an electoral lever within the Likud party. He reportedly considers an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, if issued, a "badge of honor" that would bolster his standing in the primaries.

The danger in Katz's project lies not only in its brutality, or in its goals linked to reoccupying the Gaza Strip, but also in the world's silence in the face of it. The demonization and dehumanization of Gaza's residents is carried out in familiar language: "terrorists," "demographic threat," "human burden." This language clearly replicates the genocidal discourse that humanity has known before.

History doesn't repeat itself all at once, but rather starts with small steps, such as justifying "temporary camps."

Anyone who thinks that comparing the Rafah Ghetto to the Jewish ghettos of Nazi Europe is an exaggeration should ask themselves a simple question:

Is it acceptable to imprison a million people inside a wall, just because they are Palestinians?

Ultimately, Katz may disappear from the political scene, but his idea—which combines fantasy, control, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, displacement, and expulsion—will remain a stain on all who remained silent, participated in, and legitimized it under the pretext of “Israel’s security.”