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euro-mediterranean human rights monitor
Human Rights Group Warns US Gaza Plan Will Impose 'Unlawful Collective Imprisonment' of Palestinians as New Details Emerge
“The design of these proposed cities mirrors the historical model of ghettos,” said the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which said the US plans to cram 25,000 people into areas smaller than a square kilometer.
Dec 04, 2025
A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States' plan for postwar Gaza will impose "unlawful collective imprisonment" on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide.
In November, several news outlets reported on the Trump administration's plan to carve Gaza in two: a so-called “green zone” controlled by Israel and a “red zone” controlled by the militant group Hamas.
The US would construct what it called “Alternative Safe Communities” for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current "ceasefire" agreement.
The New York Times described these communities as "compounds" of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.
The initial reporting raised fears that the US and Israel were constructing what would amount to a "concentration camp," where Palestinians would be forced to live in squalid conditions without freedom of movement.
On Wednesday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released new details on how Palestinians, currently facing mass displacement from their homes in the portion of the strip not occupied by Israel, would be corralled into the green zone under the US proposal.
The Geneva-based group issued a stark warning about the plan, which it said carried "grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army."
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life."
Euro-Med's report explains that the transfer of Palestinians would be carried out using "various pressure tactics."
"This is done by creating a coercive environment in the red zone and making access to relative protection and basic services conditional on relocating to designated areas within the green zone, following extensive security screening and vetting," the report says. "This removes any genuine element of consent and places the process squarely within the scope of forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law."
It also provides new details on the conditions Palestinians would be subject to once they've arrived: "The plan includes the establishment of 'cities' of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints."
This means these Palestinian cantons would be over three times as densely populated as the Tel Aviv District, the most crowded in Israel, which has about 8,130 people per square kilometer.
"Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life," the report continues.
This is not the first proposal to use the promise of safety to lure Palestinians into an enclosed space without the right to leave.
Earlier this year, following US President Donald Trump's call for the people of Palestine to be forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz proposed the creation of a massive “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah that would be used as part of an “emigration plan” for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Under that plan, Palestinians would have been given “security screenings” and once inside would not be allowed to leave. Humanitarian organizations, including those inside Israel, roundly condemned the plan as essentially a “concentration camp.”
Euro-Med said that the design laid out in the new US plan "mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts."
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One Month Into Ceasefire, Israel Continues 'Silent Genocide' in Gaza
A report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor detailed "a clear policy by the Israeli political and military leadership to use the ceasefire as a cover to continue genocide against Gaza’s residents."
Nov 11, 2025
A month after Hamas and Israeli officials signed off on a ceasefire deal, a leading human rights group warned that Israel is maintaining conditions in Gaza that "prevent any recovery from over 25 months of humanitarian catastrophe," while the international community is largely silent about the continued killing and destruction in the exclave.
Despite the ceasefire deal that was brokered by the Trump administration, an average of eight Palestinians are still being killed per day as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue to wage "aerial and artillery bombardment, gunfire, and the ongoing destruction of homes and buildings, particularly in the eastern areas of Khan Younis and Gaza City," according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
The Government Media Office in Gaza reported Tuesday that Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement at least 282 times, as it's claimed that Hamas has done the same by killing Israeli soldiers and failing to return the body of one of the captives who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
President Donald Trump has defended the IDF's attacks in some cases, saying an attack on October 29 that killed 109 Palestinian people, including 52 children, was "retribution" for the killing of an Israeli soldier.
With the president's tacit approval of attacks that it considers "retribution" and his insistence that the ceasefire holds, Israel has killed 242 Palestinians since the ceasefire began on October 10, including 85 children. About 619 people have been injured.
Despite the first phase of the 20-point peace plan put forward by Trump stipulating an end to all hostilities by Hamas and Israel, said the Euro-Med Monitor, "Israel continues to commit genocide against Palestinian civilians through various means."
In addition to continuing its military bombardment, Israel has not obeyed another requirement of the first phase of the deal: lifting the blockade that began in October 2023 and that has killed nearly 500 Palestinians so far.
"Israel continues to administer a deliberate policy of starvation in the Gaza Strip, having blocked the entry of approximately 70% of the aid required under the agreement," said Euro-Med Monitor. "It also controls the type of goods allowed in, systematically restricting essential food items such as meat and dairy products while flooding the markets with calorie-dense but nutrient-poor products."
Gaza's population of about 2 million people remains "in a state of controlled, chronic hunger," said the group. Child malnutrition rates remain 20% from last year despite the ceasefire.
The group released an infographic on Tuesday, detailing the devastation that continues in Gaza as Israel persists in committing a "silent genocide"—now without the sustained pressure of the international community for the attacks to stop.
The graphic notes that since Israel began its attacks:
- Nine out of every 10 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza were civilians;
- 100% of hospitals have been damaged or destroyed;
- 45,600 children have been orphaned;
- 12% of all Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, injured, detained, or are missing.
- 40,000 people now have permanent or long-term disabilities, including 21,000 children;
- 100% of the population faces acute food insecurity; and
- 100% of the population has suffered psychological trauma.
The Euro-Med Monitor also warned that Israel is continuing to block movement in both directions at the Rafah crossing, restricting civilians who are sick or wounded from getting medical care.
"These actions are not isolated incidents but part of a systematic pattern indicating a clear policy by the Israeli political and military leadership to use the ceasefire as a cover to continue genocide against Gaza’s residents," said the group. "By maintaining a disguised military assault and perpetuating killing, starvation, and systematic destruction, Israel exploits the absence of international will to protect civilians and hold perpetrators accountable."
A "grave development" included in Euro-Med Monitor's report is "the dismantling of the Gaza Strip’s geographical unity, turning it into an isolated and uninhabitable area."
Ramy Abdul, chairman of the organization, posted a video on social media of an Israeli soldier "proudly documenting" his army unit's use of excavators, "flattening what's left of northern Gaza" behind the "yellow line" to which Israeli troops were required to withdraw under the ceasefire deal.
"The continued silence of the international community and the failure to activate accountability mechanisms provide Israel with practical cover to continue committing genocide, albeit at a slower pace, as part of a consistent policy aimed at eliminating the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip," said Euro-Med Monitor.
The group's analysis came as Politico reported that Trump administration officials have begun privately expressing concerns that the peace deal could break down due to an inability to implement core provisions, such as deploying an "International Stabilization Force" that would officially be tasked with peacekeeping in Gaza.
"The administration took its victory lap after the initial ceasefire and hostage release, but all the hard work, the real hard work, remains," David Schenker, former assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, told Politico.
Countries including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Jordan, and Azerbaijan have said they will not commit to contributing forces, with the latter declining to attend a recent planning meeting and saying it would not participate until a full ceasefire is in place.
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3 in 4 Gaza Detainees Held Without Trial by Israel Are Civilians, Military Database Says
Jessica Montell, director of the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, said Israel's "unlawful combatants" law "has been used to facilitate the forced disappearance of hundreds and even thousands of people."
Sep 04, 2025
The vast majority of the Palestinians being held in Israel's brutal detention centers are civilians, according to data from a classified Israeli military database.
An investigation published Thursday by The Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call reveals that of the more than 6,000 so-called "unlawful combatants" detained by Israel during the first 19 months of its military campaign in Gaza, just 1,450 of them were considered by the army to be Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants.
In its public statements, the Israeli government and media often describe every Palestinian detained or killed in Gaza as a "terrorist." But according to The Guardian:
Those jailed for long periods without charge or trial include medical workers, teachers, civil servants, media workers, writers, sick and disabled people, and children.
Among the most egregious cases are those of an 82-year-old woman with Alzheimer's jailed for six weeks and of a single mother separated from her young children. When the mother was released after 53 days she found the children begging on the streets.
Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law enacted in 2002, allows the military to hold people in detention if they have "reasonable grounds" to believe they participated in "hostile activities against the state of Israel" or are a member of a group that has.
The law allows them to be held for 75 days without access to a lawyer and another 45 days without being brought before a court. After October 7, 2023, those periods of internment were extended to 180 and 75 days, respectively.
Their detention periods are often extended automatically based on "secret evidence" that is not shared with detainees or their lawyers. According to the joint report, "There have been no known trials of anyone captured in Gaza since October 7."
This detention method is described as a way to subvert due process without declaring the detained to be prisoners of war, which entitles them to protection from violence under international law.
"If Israel were to put all [the detainees] on trial, they'd have to draft indictments on specific charges and present evidence of those allegations," Jessica Montell, director of the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, told +972. "Due process can be cumbersome. That's why they created the Unlawful Combatants Law, to bypass all of that."
Montell said that the law "has been used to facilitate the forced disappearance of hundreds and even thousands of people."
According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, shortly after the war kicked off, Israel began the "rushed transformation of more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, military and civilian, into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy."
Testimonies from dozens of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank who were arbitrarily detained revealed in August 2024 that the prisoners "were subjected to harsh arbitrary violence on a frequent basis, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation, forced lack of hygiene, sleep deprivation, restriction and punishment of religious worship, confiscation of all group and personal belongings, and denial of adequate medical care."
Those who have been released from detention often come back in horrendous health, as the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor found out when it documented the conditions of the roughly 2,000 detainees released during January's brief ceasefire period between Israel and Hamas. A report released by the group in February stated that:
The majority appeared to be in a serious state of decline, with each of them losing several kilograms of weight due to what appears to be intentional starvation.
Following their release, many of the inmates and detainees required immediate hospital transfers for critical medical examinations. One in particular seemed incapable of recognizing his future after being denied treatment while in custody.
These circumstances demonstrate how Israel has transformed its jails into institutionalized torture facilities for Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including those who were convicted and imprisoned prior to October 7, 2023.
Until the final moments before their release, most of the detainees endured psychological torture in addition to mistreatment and beatings.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Media Office, 77 Palestinians have died while in Israeli detention since the start of the war.
HaMoked says Israel is currently detaining more than 11,000 Palestinians as "security" inmates, including 2,662 people designated as "unlawful combatants"—the most since the designation was created. They are also holding 3,577 people in administrative detention, which allows people to be held without charge on the grounds that they may have broken the law in the future.
At least 360 children ages 12-17 are currently being held in Israeli detention, according to the latest figures from the Israel Prison Service released on June 30.
"These children are languishing in overcrowded Israeli prisons, fed rotten food, and beaten on a daily basis by Israeli guards, all while they are completely isolated from the outside world, including from their families and lawyers," said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at the Defense for Children International-Palestine.
A record number of these children, 147 of them, are being held under administrative detention without charge or trial.
The investigation by The Guardian, +972, and Local Call comes two weeks after the three outlets published a report on classified Israel Defense Forces data that showed 5 in 6 Palestinians killed in the first 19 months of the war were civilians, despite persistent claims by Israel and its Western allies that the military is targeting Hamas.
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