Katz calls for plan to confine all Gazans in ‘humanitarian city’ to be built over Rafah’s ruins

Defense Minister Israel Katz tells reporters in a briefing today that he instructed the IDF and the ministry to bring forward a plan to establish a new “humanitarian city” in the southern Gaza Strip, on the ruins of Rafah.

The idea of the humanitarian area, according to Katz, is to accommodate initially some 600,000 Palestinians who have been living in the Mawasi area on the coast after being displaced from elsewhere in the Strip, after screening them to ensure Hamas operatives are not entering.

Palestinians will not be allowed to leave the zone, he says.

Eventually, the idea is to bring the entire Palestinian civilian population to the zone while the IDF secures it from a distance, as international bodies work to manage the area. An additional four aid distribution sites would be established in the area, according to Katz.

Katz also emphasizes his ambition to encourage Palestinians to “voluntarily emigrate” from the Gaza Strip to other countries, saying this plan “should be fulfilled.”

It’s unclear if the zone would be used as a transit point, as described in a Reuters report earlier today that detailed plans for “Humanitarian Transit Areas” where Gazans could “temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so.”

The director general of the Defense Ministry, Amir Baram, has already begun advancing planning for the zone, which Katz stresses will not be run by the IDF, but instead by international bodies.

Katz doesn’t specify which international organizations would operate the city, and other than the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, it is unlikely that any will cooperate given that the plan aims to displace the entire Palestinian population of the Strip.

There are also concerns that Israel will establish settlements in the areas it forcibly evacuates. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that is not his plan, but he is beholden to far-right coalition partners who are determined to see it through.

Katz says Israel seeks to hold on to the Morag Corridor, north of Rafah, in a hostage deal with Hamas. During a potential 60-day ceasefire, Israel would work to establish the new humanitarian zone south of the corridor, he says.

Katz says in the briefing that the IDF is holding onto nearly 70% of the Strip’s territory.