Palestine

Tony Blair Institute took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ ethnic cleansing project

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Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for a meeting at the Planalto Palace on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 [Ton Molina/NurPhoto via Getty Images]

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has been implicated in what many believe to be a blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, following revelations that the institution founded by the former UK Prime Minister participated in a controversial postwar planning project proposing the mass displacement of Palestinians. 

Details of TBI’s involvement was uncovered in a Financial Times investigation. It revealed that the scheme, developed by Israeli businessmen and modelled by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), included economic incentives to forcibly “relocate” up to half a million Palestinians and transform the besieged enclave into a luxury investment zone dubbed the “Gaza Riviera”.

BCG developed financial models estimating the costs of displacing up to 500,000 Palestinians from Gaza as part of a project internally labelled “Aurora”. The modelling included so-called “relocation packages” worth around $9,000 per person, which were framed as voluntary but widely condemned as a thinly veiled scheme for transferring the population of Gaza. 

Simultaneously, staff from TBI are said to have participated in message groups and planning calls where they circulated internal proposals for a postwar economic transformation of Gaza. These included visions of a “Gaza Riviera”, artificial islands modelled on Dubai’s developments, blockchain-based trade zones and low-tax manufacturing hubs. 

Though TBI later distanced itself from the final plan, its documented participation has raised serious concerns about its complicity in efforts to reengineer Gaza’s demography under the guise of reconstruction.

According to the FT, BCG was hired in October 2024 by Orbis, a Washington-based contractor, to aid in setting up the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed aid project now marred by the killing of more than 600 Palestinians seeking food. The aid operation is militarised, staffed by private US contractors and guarded by Israeli forces. Humanitarian organisations have boycotted the initiative while UN has described GHF as a “fig leaf” for Israeli war aims.

Read: Blair dismisses rumour of role in Israel’s ‘voluntary resettlement of Gazans’

In internal modelling, BCG calculated that removing Palestinians from Gaza would be $23,000 cheaper per person than aiding them in place. One scenario projected 25 per cent of the population—roughly 500,000 people—would leave “voluntarily” under a $9,000 “relocation package”. Critics, however, say any plan to “incentivise” Palestinians to leave the besieged enclave amounts to forced transfer, prohibited under international law.

The Tony Blair Institute, while denying authorship of a postwar blueprint titled “The Great Trust,” has admitted that two of its staff members took part in planning calls and message groups discussing Gaza’s future. That plan includes proposals for artificial islands, special economic zones, and tech-sector development. While TBI denied endorsing population relocation, the inclusion of its staff in planning groups has raised alarms.

Phil Reilly, a former CIA officer now leading security for the GHF, reportedly pitched the project to Tony Blair in March. Though TBI claims, the former UK Prime Minister was “in listening mode”, it acknowledged that its staff reviewed the economic blueprint. 

The entire scheme was prepared for presentation to figures in the administration of President Donald Trump and allied Gulf states. Trump previously advocated turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” and removing its population. 

Critics point to the lethal rollout of GHF’s food distribution in Gaza, which has resulted in hundreds of deaths, as proof of the operation’s militarised, coercive nature. Coupled with the economic modelling for forced transfer, it strengthens concerns that such projects are part of a broader strategy to depopulate Gaza permanently.

READ: Israeli soldiers file petition questioning legality of ‘Operation Gideon Chariots’ in Gaza

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Critics Aghast at Israel’s Push for Gaza ‘Concentration Camp’

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A Palestinian woman reacts as she checks the damages after an Israeli strike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip on July 8, 2025. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)

A prominent Israeli human rights lawyer condemned the proposal outlined by Israel’s defense minister as “an operational plan for a crime against humanity.”

The Israeli government’s new plan to push all residents in Gaza to live in a camp built atop the ruins of the city of Rafah is drawing heavy criticism from experts who see it as a precursor for ethnic cleansing.

In an interview with The Guardian, Israeli human rights attorney Michael Sfard accused Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz of laying out “an operational plan for a crime against humanity” with his announcement this week of an initiative to build a massive refugee camp at Rafah from which Palestinians would not be allowed to leave. Katz characterized the proposed camp as a “humanitarian city.”

Sfard said that the entire camp was being built as a pretext for the mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza.

“It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip,” he told The Guardian. “While the government still calls the deportation ‘voluntary,’ people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual. When you drive someone out of their homeland that would be a war crime, in the context of a war. If it’s done on a massive scale like he plans, it becomes a crime against humanity.”

Dr. Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, picked apart the Israeli government’s claims that the camp in Rafah would be a “humanitarian city” where Palestinian civilians could live safely away from Israeli military operations being conducted against Hamas fighters.

“It is neither humanitarian nor a city,” Goldberg explained. “A city is a place where you have possibilities of work, of earning money, of making connections and freedom of movement. There are hospitals, schools, universities and offices. This is not what they have in mind. It will not be a livable place, just as the ‘safe areas’ are unlivable now.”

Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian human rights activist and director of the Agora Initiative, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with The National.

“Israel’s Defense Minister Katz isn’t even hiding it any more—he’s openly calling for a concentration camp for Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of the Refugees International advocacy group, told Reuters that he wasn’t at all buying the Israeli government’s stated humanitarian intentions regarding the construction of the camp.

“There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid,” he said.

Reuters reported Monday that a $2 billion plan for so-called “humanitarian transit areas” inside Gaza was recently discussed in the Trump White House.

President Donald Trump earlier this year called for the mass removal of Palestinians from Gaza so that the area could be rebuilt as an international beach resort that he described as the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
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‘Thousands of babies in Gaza lack proper nutrition’: UNICEF chief

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Premature babies face serious health risks due to limited access to both breast milk and infant formula at the Patient Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in Gaza, on June 25, 2025. [Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea – Anadolu Agency]

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief Catherine Russell on Monday warned of a deepening nutrition crisis among infants in the Gaza Strip as humanitarian access remains severely restricted, Anadolu reports.

“Thousands of babies in Gaza lack proper nutrition as aid access remains severely hampered,” Russell wrote on X.

Highlighting the impact of Israel’s ongoing attacks on women and children, she said: “Many mothers have been killed or are too malnourished to breastfeed, leaving infants at risk of dying or with permanent health damage.”

“Every minute counts in saving their lives,” she added.

OPINION: A true ceasefire, or just more waiting?

Despite international calls for a ceasefire, Israel has pursued a genocidal war on Gaza, killing more than 57,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since October 2023.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ: Germany says UN should be main coordinator of Gaza aid

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Germany says UN should be main coordinator of Gaza aid

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Aid trucks sent by the United Nations under Israeli attacks enter the Zakim border crossing under the protection of Palestinians and reached the warehouses in the north of in Gaza City, Gaza, on June 25, 2025. [Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini – Anadolu Agency]

Germany on Monday called for the United Nations to take the lead in coordinating aid distribution in Gaza, as concerns mount over civilian deaths at food distribution points, Anadolu reports.

“There is an established and functioning humanitarian aid system, supported by major aid organizations, NGOs and the United Nations. It works. In our view, it must be able to deliver the necessary aid to the people,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kathrin Deschauer at a press conference.

The remarks follow reports that Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians gathering at US-backed food distribution centers in recent weeks.

“It is shocking and unacceptable that the distribution of aid to people in need is resulting in deaths and also many injuries,” Deschauer added, calling for an investigation into the reports.

READ: No reports of Hamas stealing aid in Gaza: EU Commission

Many civilians seeking help and food are being “put in danger,” she said, expressing deep concern about the “dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

On June 27, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) issued a scathing condemnation of the current aid distribution system in Gaza.

“The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on X. “Over 400 starving people reported killed since it started operating just a month ago. They were shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families.”

READ: Hamas rejects US allegations of Gaza aid centre attack

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Yemen’s Houthis claim attack on sinking cargo ship in Red Sea

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Maxar satellite imagery of the Greek-flagged crude oil tanker Sounion that was recently attacked by Yemen’s Houthis [Satellite image (c) 2024 Maxar Technologies]

Yemen’s Houthi group claimed responsibility on Monday for an attack on the bulk carrier Magic Seas in the Red Sea, which has left the vessel taking on water and is expected to sink, Anadolu reports.

In a televised statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the vessel was hit by “two unmanned boats, five ballistic and cruise missiles, and three drones” on Sunday.

“The operation directly hit the ship, leading to water ingress. It is now exposed to sink,” Saree said. “Our forces allowed the crew to safely evacuate.”

The Houthi spokesman said the Magic Seas and its affiliated company violated what the group called a “ban on entering occupied Palestinian ports,” in reference to Israeli ports. He did not name the vessel’s owner or operator.

Saree added that the attack followed several warnings sent to the ship, which he said were ignored by the crew.

The Houthis have intensified missile and drone strikes on Israel since the Israeli military resumed attacks on Gaza in March after two months of a shaky ceasefire.

Since November 2023, the group has also targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 57,500 people have been killed in an Israeli onslaught.

READ: Houthis fire 2 missiles at Israel in response to strikes on Yemeni ports and power station

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