Israel Katz

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.
Continue ReadingCritics Aghast at Israel’s Push for Gaza ‘Concentration Camp’

Israel confirms plans to create 22 new settlements in occupied West Bank

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/29/israel-new-settlements-occupied-west-bank-palestinian-state

The Israeli settlement of Bruchin, centre, on top of a hill and adjacent to the West Bank village of Bruqin. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP

Defence minister says move ‘prevents establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel’

Israel has said it will establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, after a security cabinet vote held in secret last week.

Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have tried to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.

The motion was said to have been put forward by the far-right defence minister, Israel Katz, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, which is considered illegal under international law.

Katz said the settlement decision “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria”, using the biblical term for the West Bank, “anchors our historical right in the Land of Israel, and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism”.

He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

…

Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/29/israel-new-settlements-occupied-west-bank-palestinian-state

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
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Continue ReadingIsrael confirms plans to create 22 new settlements in occupied West Bank

‘Only Hellfire’: Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza

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

Palestinians scramble to collect food during a charity distribution in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, on April 12, 2025. (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Israel’s defense ministers can’t stop publicly confessing to war crimes,” said one U.S. journalist.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.

“Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said. “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”

Katz had initially said that Israel would eventually allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but later clarified his remarks following outrage from far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, warned against repeating what he called the “historic mistake” of letting any aid into Gaza, where a “complete siege” declared in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has fueled widespread starvation, sickness, and other crises.

“It’s a shame we don’t learn from our mistakes. As long as our hostages are dying in the tunnels, there is no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said on social media.

Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar also discussed the policy Wednesday, asserting that “the despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian assistance from any civilian or military mechanism.”

“Only hellfire should be poured on the makers of terrorism until the last hostage returns from Gaza,” Zohar added.

Israeli media reported Wednesday that senior government security officials believe Gaza will run out of humanitarian supplies and food in about a month.

Legal experts say the siege is a war crime, and United Nations experts and human rights groups have called Israel’s blockade and use of starvation as a weapon of war acts of genocide.

The International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—last March issued a provisional order to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Many critics say Israel has ignored the directive.

Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who ordered the siege, are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued warrants to arrest the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the siege.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which advocates for people kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, on Wednesday accused the Netanyahu government of “choosing to seize territory over hostages.”

“The time has come to stop the false promises and slogans. It is impossible to continue the war and at the same time release all the hostages,” the group added, echoing the growing anti-war sentiment among Israeli troops and the general public.

Human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza. On Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Israeli government to “immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians and humanitarian and medical personnel, and for all parties to restore and sustain the cease-fire” that Israel unilaterally broke last month.

Amande Bazerolle, the medical group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that “Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance.”

“We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza,” Bazerolle added. “With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.”

Katz also said Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would remain in so-called security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for an indefinite period.

“Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” and “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza—as in Lebanon and Syria,” Katz said.

Earlier this month, Katz said Israel will be “seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements,” a reference to plans by far-right members of Netanyahu’s government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza.

Israeli soldiers have blown the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by IDF troops in what some call the “kill zone” along the border with Israel, including indiscriminate killing and wholesale deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.

Recent reporting has also revealed the IDF is planning to take as much as 20% of Gaza, including the entire depopulated city of Rafah. U.S. President Donald Trump has also proposed an American takeover of Gaza, the expulsion of its Palestinians, and the development of the “Riviera of the Middle East” in the coastal strip.

Almost all of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s onslaught, some of them multiple times. The 558-day assault has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according officials there.

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

Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
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
Continue Reading‘Only Hellfire’: Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza

Aid Group Sounds Alarm Over ‘Disturbing’ Israeli Rampage in West Bank

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

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a house after an Israeli airstrike in the village of Burqin in the West Bank on January 23, 2025.
 (Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel’s military is applying “lessons” learned during its bombardment of Gaza to recent attacks on the West Bank—and a leading human rights group warned that as in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces’ actions are resulting in “significant humanitarian consequences.”

Operations like “Iron Wall” in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin and a “surge in settler attacks” that have been backed by the IDF “have heightened insecurity, displacement, and severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Thursday.

Iron Wall began Tuesday, with the IDF launching airstrikes and ground attacks in the West Bank two days after a cease-fire took effect in Gaza.

At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the Iron Wall attacks and 40 people have been injured, including medical workers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

After months of warnings from rights organizations that the IDF cut off access to essential services for Gaza residents with a near-total humanitarian aid blockade and the relentless bombardment of the enclave, the NRC said that Israeli forced have “increased checkpoints, roadblocks, and other physical barriers throughout the West Bank.”

“These measures further fragment Palestinian communities, restrict access to essential services, and prevent humanitarian agencies, like NRC, from reaching the communities we serve,” said the group.

The latest violence in the West Bank is part of a broader trend, with Israel having begun launching airstrikes in the territory after October 7, 2023, for the first time since the Second Intifada in 2000-05.

The IDF launched Iron Wall in Jenin two weeks after a shooting attack that Israel blamed on gunmen in the refugee camp, which has long been a hub for Palestinian resistance groups and is also home to more than 24,000 Palestinians who are registered in the camp.

Katz said in a statement Wednesday that with the Jenin raid, the IDF is applying “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”

“We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel,” he said.

In addition to the attacks in Jenin, masked Israeli settlers have been filmed setting fire to homes and vehicles in towns across the Israeli-occupied territory in what the Israel-based human rights group B’Tselem called an effort to “impose a ‘price tag’ for the release of Palestinians” as part of the cease-fire agreement in Gaza.

Residents told Al Jazeera that “constant gunfire and explosions” have been heard in Jenin since Iron Wall began, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that the IDF has left the camp “nearly uninhabitable.”

An estimated 2,000 families have been displaced from the Jenin area since December, according to the agency.

“We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate, and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza,” said Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Middle East and North Africa regional director. “Under international law, Israel must bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to an end as rapidly as possible. Until then, it must fully comply with its obligations as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians.”

In addition to airstrikes and ground attacks, the governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told Agence France-Presse that Israeli military bulldozers have destroyed all roads leading to the camp and to the nearby hospital. Twenty Palestinians from villlages in the Jenin area have been detained since Iron Wall began on Tuesday, according to the governor.

“What we are seeing in Jenin camp is horrific, said one paramedic trained by Doctors Without Borders. “People are targeted while being evacuated, and the wounded cannot be reached by ambulance.”

https://twitter.com/MSF_USA/status/1882483969423257955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1882483969423257955%7Ctwgr%5E1b99547df6eebbcb8e7d5251b39cc95a58875048%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fwest-bank-attack-2670983221

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In 2024, Israeli demolitions in the West Bank reached a record high, said the NRC, with 1,768 structures destroyed. IDF soldiers and settlers killed at least 499 Palestinians in the territory last year.

U.S. President Donald Trump has selected at least two nominees for high-level diplomatic positions—Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for U.N. ambassador and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel—who have expressed support for right-wing Israeli officials’ claim that Israel has a “Biblical right” to the West Bank.

Amid the settler violence and Jenin raid, Caredda called on the international community to “take decisive action to stop these violations and end the occupation.”

“Impunity for serious violations of international law has allowed Israel to unlawfully escalate violence in the occupied West Bank,” said Caredda.

Original article by Julia Conley 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
Continue ReadingAid Group Sounds Alarm Over ‘Disturbing’ Israeli Rampage in West Bank