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war crimes
Critics Aghast at Israel's Push for Gaza 'Concentration Camp'
A prominent Israeli human rights lawyer condemned the proposal outlined by Israel's defense minister as "an operational plan for a crime against humanity."
Jul 08, 2025
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."
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'Killing Is Normalized': IDF Soldier Speaks Out About Orders to Shoot Civilians in Gaza
The commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die," the soldier said. "If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is."
Jul 07, 2025
Another Israel Defense Forces soldier has spoken out publicly against the IDF's brutalization of civilians in Gaza.
In an interview with the British Sky News Monday, a reservist who has served three tours of duty in Gaza spoke candidly about orders he and other soldiers received to shoot any person arbitrarily who entered defined "no-go zones," regardless of whether they posed a threat.
The soldier gave his testimony anonymously for fear of being labeled a "traitor." However, he identified himself as a reservist from the 252nd Division who was stationed at the Netzarim Corridor, a road which divides North and South Gaza.
The area has been one of the most critical strategic points for Israel's occupation of Gaza, allowing control over the flow of aid and people.
The soldiers, stationed on the edge of a civilian neighborhood in the homes of displaced Palestinians, were ordered by their commanders to kill anyone who passed an "imaginary line" that marked the beginning of the military stronghold, the soldier said.
"We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die," the soldier said. "If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is."
"It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle," he said.
The soldier said that the prevailing attitude among the troops was that all Palestinians were "terrorists," and that this attitude was reinforced by commanders.
"They say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn't be there, and if he still comes, it means he's a terrorist," he said. "This is what they tell you. But I don't really think it's true. It's just poor people, civilians, that don't really have too many choices."
He said that when soldiers in the corridor kill civilians, a lot of them "think that they did something good."
That sense of impunity, he said, comes from the higher-ups.
"Some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don't face the consequences of that," he said.
"You can't be in this scenario for so long and not normalize it," he said. "Killing is normalized, and you don't see the problem."
This anonymous soldier is the latest of many who have decided to speak out against atrocities their military has committed.
His testimony comes on the heels of a harrowing Haaretz expose, in which several other Israeli soldiers described being ordered to shoot Palestinian aid-seekers, turning the U.S.-Israeli administered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites into "killing fields." Others provided The Associated Press with video of soldiers bombarding civilians in an aid site with pepper spray and stun grenades.
Others have spoken out against the attacks on civilians near the Israeli stronghold at Netzarim.
In April, a report by the Israeli veterans group Breaking the Silence detailed many more accounts of brutality over the first year-and-a-half of the war. It included accounts of Israeli soldiers razing agricultural land, bulldozing entire city blocks, and designating "large swathes of the land" that "were turned into massive kill zones."
"All of them were wiped off the face of the Earth. Annihilation, expropriation, and expulsion are immoral and must never be normalized or legitimized," the report said.
The soldier who spoke to Sky News said his deployment left a similar stain on his conscience.
"I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country," he said. "I think the war is... a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over."
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'Just Killed, for Nothing': Israeli Troops Say They Were Ordered to Shoot Aid-Seeking Gaza Civilians
"Killing innocent people—it's been normalized," said one senior reserve officer. "We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops."
Jun 27, 2025
Israel Defense Forces commanders ordered troops to shoot and shell aid-seeking Palestinian civilians in Gaza, even when they posed no threat, according to IDF officers and soldiers interviewed by Israel's oldest daily newspaper.
Haaretz on Friday published testimonies of IDF members including senior officers who said that commanders including Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach ordered troops to open fire on aid-seeking Palestinians in order to disperse them, even when there was no danger to Israeli troops.
"It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force—no crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire."
The soldier said troops informally call this activity "Operation Salted Fish." Salted fish, or dag maluach in Hebrew, is an Israeli children's game similar to red light, green light. One IDF reservist who just finished a round of duty in Gaza this week said that "the loss of human life means nothing. It's not even an 'unfortunate incident,' like they used to say."
Last month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report revealed that 244,000 people in Gaza were suffering such "an extreme deprivation of food" that "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident." Gaza officials say at least hundreds of people have already died of malnutrition and lack of medical care since Israel tightened the siege in March. Many of the victims are children and elders. Hundreds of premature infants face imminent death.
Amid such desperation—driven by 629 days of U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment, invasion, and ethnic cleansing that have killed, wounded, or disappeared more than 200,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced over 2 million—Gazans are willing to risk their lives for their next meal.
According to Gaza's Government Media Office, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been wounded by IDF troops since May 27 while trying to obtain humanitarian aid amid Israel's "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip that has fueled mass starvation and illness. Dozens or more civilians have been killed in the worst of these aid massacres.
A reserve officer in Vach's Division 252—veterans of which have accused the general of telling them "there are no innocents in Gaza"—told Haaretz that he was ordered to fire artillery shells toward a crowd gathered near an aid distribution site.
"Technically, it's supposed to be warning fire—either to push people back or stop them from advancing," he said. "But lately, firing shells has just become standard practice. Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there's never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders."
"You know it's not right. You feel it's not right—that the commanders here are taking the law into their own hands," the soldier added. "But Gaza is a parallel universe. You move on quickly. The truth is, most people don't even stop to think about it."
A senior reserve officer who was present when more than 10 aid-seekers were killed said:
When we asked why they opened fire, we were told it was an order from above and that the civilians had posed a threat to the troops. I can say with certainty that the people were not close to the forces and did not endanger them. It was pointless—they were just killed, for nothing. This thing called killing innocent people—it's been normalized. We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops.
That message has come all the way from the top. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and weaponized starvation—has invoked the biblical command for genocide against Israel's ancient enemy Amalek. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the killing of every man, woman, and child in Gaza would be "justified and moral." Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi asserted that "there are no uninvolved people" in Gaza, and "we must go in there and kill, kill, kill." Many other prominent Israelis have made similar statements.
Israel's Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to investigate the killing of aid-seeking civilians as possible war crimes. However, the historical record suggests impunity—or at worst, wrist-slap punishment—will prevail for most if not all of those who ordered and carried out the shooting and shelling of civilians.
One military source who attended a high-level IDF meeting during which the use of artillery on aid-seekers was discussed told Haaretz that "they talk about using artillery on a junction full of civilians as if it's normal."
"An entire conversation about whether it's right or wrong to use artillery, without even asking why that weapon was needed in the first place," the source said. "What concerns everyone is whether it'll hurt our legitimacy to keep operating in Gaza. The moral aspect is practically nonexistent. No one stops to ask why dozens of civilians looking for food are being killed every day."
"This isn't about a few people being killed—we're talking about dozens of casualties every day."
A legal official who attended the meeting told Haaretz that representatives of the Military Advocate General's Office rejected the IDF's argument that aid killings were one-off incidents.
"The claim that these are isolated cases doesn't align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians," the official said. "This isn't about a few people being killed—we're talking about dozens of casualties every day."
The near-daily massacres of aid-seeking Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces and Israel's use of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—whose operations have been called a "death trap"—have drawn international condemnation.
Earlier this week, a spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that "the weaponization of food for civilians... constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law," remarks that came amid the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz rejected the claims in the Haaretz report as "blood libels," while the IDF responded to the exposé in a statement claiming that "any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary."
"The allegations of deliberate fire toward civilians presented in the article are not recognized in the field," the IDF added.
IDF troops have previously admitted to witnessing alleged war crimes including indiscriminate murder of people including women and children in Gaza and torture, sometimes fatal, in Israeli detention centers including the notorious Sde Teiman prison.
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