Former PM Ehud Olmert calls Katz's humanitarian city plan a 'concentration camp'
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert called Defense Minister Israel Katz's "humanitarian city" plan in Gaza a "concentration camp" in an interview with the Guardian on Sunday.
"It is a concentration camp. I am sorry," he said.
Katz recently said that the Defense Ministry would build a new humanitarian city in the Rafah area for at least 600,000 Palestinians.
Anyone who entered would have limitations on their ability to go in and out of the area and would only be allowed to enter after being carefully checked for possessing weapons.
Olmert said that Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, telling the Guardian that constructing the humanitarian city would "mark an escalation."
"If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new 'humanitarian city,' then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn't yet happened," the former prime minister said.
Olmert told the Guardian that he did not consider Israel's current campaign in Gaza as ethnic cleansing, because evacuating civilians to protect them from fighting was legal under international law, and Palestinians returned to areas where operations concluded.
He called government claims that the humanitarian city aimed to protect Palestinian civilians "were not credible."
Additionally, Olmert also called the killing of two Palestinian men, including an American citizen, by Israeli settlers "war crimes."
"Unforgivable. Unacceptable. There are continuous operations organized, orchestrated in the most brutal, criminal manner by a large group."
Olmert described cabinet ministers who support the further expansion of settlements in Gaza and the West Bank as "the enemies from within."
The former prime minister said that he supported the initial campaign against Hamas after the October 7 massacre, but criticized the government for abandoning negotiations for a ceasefire "publicly and in a brutal manner."
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