Yves here. It’s sad to say that genocide fatigue has set in as outrage across the world has not moved the one actor that could stop the Israel’s slaughter, the US. Photos of starving children provoked a recent spike of condemnation, but that made no difference. The US and Israel keep piling on with their sense of extreme entitlement as they add to their horrowshow rap sheet, from sanctioning the UN’s special rapporteur Francesca Albanese to planning to formalize the status of Gaza as a concentration camp, which Israel is calling, in an insult to intelligence, “humanitarian city”. Gee, like summer camp but with no food, medicine, or clean water?
If you’d been paying attention, Gaza pre October 7 was regularly described as an open air concentration camp. The post by Medea Benjamin below explains that this new concentration camp is presented as a waypost to intended expulsion of the Palestinians, which is ethnic cleansing and verboten under international law, not that Israel and the US are bound by such niceties. However, as readers know well, Israel and the US been trying to get other nations to accept Palestinians who are forcibly removed. There are no takers. So we’ll see how herding Palestinians into an overcrowded area furthers the genocide plan, since the excuse of mere ethnic cleansing seems to remain beyond Israel’s reach. Perhaps cholera will speed the deaths?
Yesterday, Conor linked to a story from +972 Magazine on Israel’s use of drones to herd Palestinians in Gaza. It seems likely these methods will be used on a bigger scale in implementing the new concentration camp scheme. From ‘Like a video game’: Israel enforcing Gaza evacuations with grenade-firing drones:
The Israeli military has weaponized a fleet of Chinese-manufactured commercial drones to attack Palestinians in parts of Gaza that it seeks to depopulate, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call can reveal. According to interviews with seven soldiers and officers who served in the Strip, these drones are operated manually by troops on the ground, and are frequently used to bomb Palestinian civilians — including children — in an effort to force them to leave their homes or prevent them from returning to evacuated areas.
Soldiers most commonly use EVO drones, produced by the Chinese company Autel, which are primarily intended for photography and cost around NIS 10,000 (approximately $3,000) on Amazon. However, with a military-issued attachment known internally as an “iron ball,” a hand grenade can be affixed to the drone and dropped with the push of a button to detonate on the ground. Today, the majority of Israeli military companies in Gaza use these drones.
S., an Israeli soldier who served in the Rafah area this year, coordinated drone attacks in a neighborhood of the city that the army had ordered to be evacuated. During the nearly 100 days that his battalion operated there, soldiers conducted dozens of drone strikes, according to daily reports from his battalion commander that +972 and Local Call reviewed….
“It was clear that they were trying to return to their homes — there’s no question,” he explained. “None of them were armed, and nothing was ever found near their bodies. We never fired warning shots. Not at any point.”
Now to the main event.
B yMedea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She is the co-author, with Nicolas J.S. Davies, of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, available from OR Books in November 2022. Other books include, “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran” (2018); “Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection” (2016); “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control” (2013); “Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart” (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) “Stop the Next War Now” (2005). Originally published at CodePink
The Israeli government has just put forward one of the most brazenly genocidal schemes in modern memory—and unless we act immediately, the world will once again let it happen.
As reported in Haaretz, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is proposing to force some 600,000 Palestinians—and eventually the entire population of Gaza—into a fenced-in “humanitarian city” to be built on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza. The plan is to “screen” the population, separate out alleged Hamas members, and then pressure the remaining civilians—men, women, and children—to “voluntarily” leave Gaza for another country. Which country? That hasn’t even been determined. The point isn’t relocation—it’s erasure. This reflects a long-standing goal among many Israelis, especially on the right, to take full control of Gaza and clear it of Palestinians.
The UN has warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory’s civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.
While all eyes are focused on a possible ceasefire, Katz is not interested in peace—he’s interested in a “final solution.” A speeding up of the second Nakba we have been witnessing for the past 20 months. In fact, he has stated that construction would begin during a 60-day ceasefire. So what’s the point of a ceasefire, if it’s used to build a concentration camp?
Once Palestinians are herded into this camp, they will not be allowed to leave for other parts of Gaza. They won’t be allowed to return to what’s left of their homes, their neighborhoods, their farms, their schools. They will be trapped inside this militarized zone, under constant surveillance, held at gunpoint until Israel can arrange their deportation.
Just think of the tragic, unbearable irony: the Israeli government—founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust—is now building a massive concentration camp for an entire population.
If that sounds unthinkable, look at what Israel has already gotten away with.
For the past 20 months, the world has watched—and largely enabled—a genocidal campaign in Gaza. Over 55,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered, the majority of them women and children. Israel has bombed hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and mosques. It has flattened entire neighborhoods with AI-generated kill lists. It has assassinated journalists, targeted ambulances, destroyed bakeries and water systems.
It has used hunger as a weapon of war, deliberately blocking aid trucks, attacking convoys, and starving the population into desperation. And in a cruel twist, it has created the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—a scheme to funnel aid through Israeli-controlled routes and sideline the UN and experienced NGOs. Its so-called “distribution points” are really death traps, where desperate people have been shot day after day as they risk their lives to get a bit of food.
This engineered starvation is not an accident. It is a strategy—a form of collective punishment on a scale rarely seen in modern times.
We have already failed the people of Gaza—again and again. We failed when we looked the other way as children were buried in rubble. We failed when we allowed our tax dollars to fund the very bombs that wiped out refugee camps. We failed when we kept pretending there was still a line Israel wouldn’t cross.
Now Katz is telling us—explicitly—what comes next: mass internment and forced expulsion. And unless we rise up with every ounce of outrage we have, we will fail again.
Let’s be absolutely clear: the infrastructure for this plan is already being built. Netanyahu and Trump are lobbyingcorrupt governments in the Global South to accept the deported. This is not a negotiating tactic to strengthen Israel’s position in ceasefire talks—it is the next phase of a genocide we’ve been watching in real time for nearly two years.
And what is the U.S. government doing? Still issuing meaningless statements about “Israel’s right to defend itself.” Still shipping weapons. Still blocking accountability at the United Nations—and even sanctioning officials like UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for daring to speak out.
President Trump could stop this today—by cutting off military aid, backing the International Criminal Court’s investigations, and declaring that forced displacement of Palestinians will not be tolerated. But instead, he’s still dreaming of turning Gaza into a Middle Eastern resort for the ultra-rich.
Meanwhile, more Arab governments stand ready to normalize ties with Israel, making deals with war criminals while their fellow Arabs are starved, bombed, and now threatened with mass exile. Where is the outcry from Cairo, Riyadh, Amman? Is there absolutely no red line?
One bright spot on the international scene is the Hague group, which will convene an emergency meeting in Colombia on July 15–16. This growing bloc of nations has joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. These countries are taking a courageous stand to uphold international law and defend Palestinian life. Every nation that claims to value justice must join them—immediately.
And here in the United States, every member of Congress must be pushed—loudly, relentlessly—to take a public stand. No more vague language. No more hiding behind mealy-mouthed scripts. We demand immediate, public opposition to this “humanitarian city” plan—and a full cutoff of military support to Israel. This is a moment of moral reckoning. Choose a side.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking this can’t happen. It is happening. The groundwork is being laid. The walls are going up. The deportation flights are being negotiated.
There is no neutral ground. This is not a policy debate. This is genocide—on camera, with diplomatic cover, and with our tax dollars.
The time to stop Israel’s dystopian plan is not tomorrow. It is now.
Rise up. Speak out. Flood the streets. Bombard Congress. Demand accountability.
Stop the plan. Save Gaza. Before it’s too late.
