Overview
- Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered planning for a massive camp in Rafah designed to house up to 600,000 Gazans during a proposed 60-day truce.
- The facility will be managed by unnamed international partners beyond a military-secured perimeter, with all arrivals undergoing security vetting and barred from exit.
- Officials intend the site to weaken Hamas’s civilian support and to serve as a staging ground for a “voluntary” emigration program whose feasibility is in doubt.
- Humanitarian agencies and Israeli critics warn the project amounts to forced displacement, while far-right ministers openly advocate deportations and new settlements.
- The camp proposal is now a formal component of the indirect ceasefire negotiations in Doha despite unresolved security and relocation guarantees.