Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). Trump and Netanyahu are doubling their efforts toward systematic, large-scale ethnic cleansing. A minister of the “only democracy in the Middle East” has even announced the construction of a camp in Gaza, sealed off by the “most humanitarian army in the world,” to “concentrate” 600,000 Palestinians there.
The dramatic escalation in the Middle East is not only marked by open acts of war, but also by structural measures that violate international law and aim at the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza. With the support of the Trump administration, Israel is openly developing plans for forced resettlement and expulsion. These developments are part of a dangerous geopolitical escalation accompanied by the most serious violations of international humanitarian law.
Israel’s plan to create a concentration camp in Rafah
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed the military to prepare a detailed plan for the construction of a camp in which almost a third of the entire population of Gaza is to be concentrated on the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 600,000 people are to be forcibly relocated from the coastal camp of Al-Mawasi, followed by the entire population of the area.
This large camp, touted as a “humanitarian city” – a masterpiece of Zionist cynicism – is to be strictly controlled by Israeli soldiers; leaving the camp would be forbidden to the inmates (prisoners). Katz explicitly said that the camp could be built during a possible 60-day ceasefire – a cynical threat that makes any negotiations on a truce more difficult, because it would facilitate the construction of the camp.
The goal—as with all other actions of the racist Netanyahu regime—is the long-term expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which Katz himself describes as an “emigration plan” that, he says with conviction, “will take place.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly stated that the population should be driven to such despair that they leave Gaza:
“The Gazans will be concentrated in the south. They will become completely desperate and understand that there is no hope in Gaza.”
Such an approach meets the definition of forced expulsion of a population and thus corresponds to the definition of “ethnic cleansing” – a clear violation of international humanitarian law and a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
US involvement and Trump’s support for the expulsion plans
As Israel implements these plans, it is working closely with the US. Under President Donald Trump, the aforementioned “emigration plan” was discussed, which envisages forcibly resettling Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants abroad. This plan was publicly sold as “voluntary resettlement.” However, international observers, including Human Rights Watch, have made it clear that the plan meets the criteria for ethnic cleansing.
Even US allies such as Egypt warned that such a move could jeopardize the decades-old peace treaty with Israel and destabilize the entire region. Saudi Arabia also rejected any mass resettlement and made normalization of relations with Israel conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza.
Particularly perfidious is the role assigned in the “emigration plan” to so-called humanitarian organizations such as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) (as reported by RT). With US support, private security companies are to set up so-called “humanitarian transit zones” under the protection of the “most humanitarian army in the world.” In these camps, people are to be “deradicalized” and “prepared for resettlement.” In reality, they are instruments of ethnic cleansing, in which people are deprived of their freedom of movement and forced to emigrate.
War crimes and genocidal nature of the offensive
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 57,000 people in Gaza so far, including thousands of children. Entire neighborhoods lie in ruins, medical care has collapsed, and the UN is talking about acute famine. According to reports, people have been deliberately killed at aid distribution points—over 600 civilians have died in more than 20 documented massacres in the last few weeks alone. The deliberate starvation and killing of civilians are clear violations of the Geneva Conventions and other international legal norms.
The plan to drive the population south through targeted starvation and bombardment in order to force them into camps and persuade them to “voluntarily” emigrate constitutes a crime against humanity. International lawyers such as Michael Sfard have explicitly described this as such, stating:
“When you expel someone from their homeland, it is a war crime in the context of war. When it happens on this scale, it becomes a crime against humanity.”
The role of Trump and Netanyahu
The cynical alliance between US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was revealed at their recent unofficial dinner, where both explicitly confirmed plans to expel Palestinians from Gaza. Netanyahu praised Trump’s “brilliant vision” and said they were working “closely with the US to find countries that will take in the displaced Palestinians.” Trump, for his part, boasted of the “good cooperation” of neighboring countries and promised to “take over” Gaza after the war and “develop” it without US soldiers.
In gratitude, Netanyahu officially nominated his accomplice Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. At the dinner, to the obvious delight of the narcissist Trump, he presented his letter to the Norwegian institution. Although the deadline for nominations expired six months ago, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has also endorsed Netanyahu’s proposal. It is also to be expected that Trump will pull all the levers of US state power to adorn himself with this title.
This cynical public self-adulation by Trump and Netanyahu is taking place against the backdrop of the criminal expulsion of the Palestinian population in the context of a war, which is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Similarly, the planned annexation of Gaza violates international law, in particular the UN Charter and Resolution 2625 (1970), which prohibits the acquisition of territory by force.
