As Ramiz Alakbarov, Deputy Special Coordinator of the United Nations for the Middle East Peace Process, said, He explained On Monday in a briefing to the UN Security Council: “Two years of fighting have left nearly 80% of Gaza’s 250,000 structures damaged or destroyed. More than 1.7 million people remain displaced, many of them living in overcrowded shelters without adequate access to water, food or medical care.”
the New York Times I mentioned On Tuesday, the new US proposal would seek to resettle some of these Palestinians in what the Trump administration calls “alternative safe communities,” on the Israeli-controlled side of the Yellow Line.
Based on information from American officials and European diplomats times He said these “model complexes” are seen as a housing option that is “more sustainable than tent villages, but they are still made up of buildings that are meant to be temporary. Each can provide housing for up to 20,000 or 25,000 people along with medical clinics and schools.”
The project is being led by Trump official Aryeh Lightstone, who previously served as an assistant to Trump’s first envoy to Jerusalem. According to times: “His team includes an eclectic and volatile group of US diplomats, Israeli businessmen, and officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — Washington’s sweeping cost-cutting effort that Elon Musk oversaw earlier this year.”
The source of funding for the project remains unclear, although the cost of just one complex is estimated in the tens of millions. At the same time, the newspaper pointed out that even if ten of these complexes were built, it would be only a fraction of what is needed to provide safety and shelter for all displaced people in Gaza. The first structures are unlikely to be completed for months.
while times She said that “the plan could provide relief to thousands of Palestinians who have suffered from two years of war,” and pointed to criticism that it “could entrench the de facto division of Gaza into areas controlled by Israel and Hamas.” Others raised concerns about whether Gazans would want to move from their homes after years or decades of resisting Israeli occupation.
But digging deeper into the report, critics noticed troubling language. On the one hand, Israeli officials have the final say on what Palestinians are allowed into the “compounds” and will closely vet applicants, which will likely lead to many of them being blacklisted.
In one of the sections entitled “Freedom of Movement.” times The report noted, “Some Israeli officials said that for security reasons, Palestinians should only be able to move into the new compounds, not leave them, according to the officials.”
This language dates back to a proposal put forward by Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz earlier this year, which called for the creation of a massive “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah that would be used as part of an “immigration plan” for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
Under this plan, Palestinians will be subjected to “security checks” and once inside, they will not be allowed to leave. Humanitarian organizations, including those inside Israel, strongly condemned the plan, describing it as essentially a “concentration camp.”
Before that, Trump called for the expulsion of Gazans – “all of them” – forever, the “seizure” of the Strip by the United States, the demolition of the remaining buildings, and the construction of what he described as “the Riviera of the Middle East.” This plan has been widely described as an ethnic cleansing plan.
The new plan to move Palestinians into “residential complexes” raises similar concerns.
“What is it called when a military force herds an ethnic or religious group into residential compounds without the ability to leave?” he asked Asal Rad, Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History and Fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, DC.
Sanaa Saeed, Senior Producer of Aaj +, Put it down More clearly: “concentration camps within mass concentration camps.”
the times He added, “Supporters insist that this will be a short-term arrangement until Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is under one unified government.” Reconstruction of other parts of Gaza, where the vast majority of the population still lives, will only happen if Hamas, the armed group that currently rules the Strip, is removed from power, Lightstone said.
But while Hamas has Shown Given its potential willingness to step down from Gaza’s rule, it rejected the proposal to unilaterally disarm and make way for an “international stabilization force” to rule the Strip, insisting instead on leaving post-war governance to the Palestinians. However, that was the plan permission Last week by the United Nations Security Council.
In addition to raising concerns that “those who move there will never be allowed to leave,” said Beirut-based freelance journalist Seamus Malektavali. He pointed out On to other ideas that Lightstone and his group want to implement. According to times“I put forward ideas ranging from a new cryptocurrency in Gaza to how to rebuild the area in a way that there is no traffic.”
“Former DOGE employees are trying to turn Gaza into another stupid technological experiment,” Malekfadli said.
Like Katz’s plan months ago, Trump’s new proposal calls for building a large complex in Rafah, something Egyptian officials warned against in comments to the organization. Wall Street JournalThis could be a prelude to renewed efforts to push the Palestinians across the border into the Sinai Peninsula.
But even if that is not the case, Jonathan Whittall, the former head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestine, said this does not serve the humanitarian role that the Trump administration and its Israeli administration seek to portray.
“If plans for these ‘safe communities’ go ahead, they will further entrench the deadly partition of Gaza,” he wrote in his article. The island. “The purpose of establishing these camps is not to provide humanitarian relief, but to create managed zones of dispossession where Palestinians will be screened and vetted for basic services, but will be expressly prevented from returning to the forbidden and besieged ‘Red Zone’.”
He noted that there is a distinct lack of any clear plan for what happens to Palestinians still living outside safe communities, warning that Israeli security clearances could serve as a way to identify them as fair targets for further escalated military attacks.
He said: “Those who remain outside alternative communities, in the red zone, risk being labeled as Hamas supporters, and therefore ineligible for protection under Israel’s distorted interpretation of international law and subject to ongoing military operations, as we have already seen in recent days.”
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