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Scoop
5 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Ominous Plans: Making Concentration Camp Gaza
The odious idea of a camp within a camp. The Gaza Strip, with an even greater concentration of Palestinian civilian life within an ever-shrinking stretch of territory. These are the proposals ventured by the Israeli government even as the official Palestinian death toll marches upwards to 60,000. They envisage the placement of some 600,000 displaced and houseless beings currently living in tents in the area of al-Mawasi along Gaza's southern coast in a creepily termed 'humanitarian city'. This would be the prelude for an ultimate relocation of the strip's entire population of over 2 million in an area that will become an even smaller prison than the Strip already is. The preparation for such a forced removal – yet another among so many Israel has inflicted upon the Palestinians – is in full swing. The analysis of satellite imagery from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) by Al Jazeera's Sanad investigations unit found that approximately 12,800 buildings were demolished in Rafah between early April and early July alone. In the Knesset on May 11 this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave words to those deeds: 'We are demolishing more and more [of their] homes, they have nowhere to return to. The only obvious result will be the desire of the Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip.' Camps of concentrated human life – concentration camps, in other words – are often given a different dressing to what they are meant to be. Authoritarian states enjoy using them to re-educate and reform the inmates even as they gradually kill them. Indeed, the proposals from the Israel's Defense Department carry with them plans for a 'Humanitarian Transit Area' where Gazans would 'temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate, and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so'. The emetic candy floss of 'humanitarian' in the context of a camp is a self-negating nonsense similar to other experiments in cruelty: the relocation of Boer civilians during the colonial wars waged by Britain to camps which saw dysentery and starvation; the movement of Vietnamese villagers into fortified hamlets to prevent their infiltration by the Vietcong in the 1960s; the creation of Pacific concentration camps to detain refugees seeking Australia by boat in what came to be called the 'Pacific Solution'. Those in the business of doing humanitarian deeds were understandably appalled by Israel's latest plans. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), stated that this would 'de facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations'. It would certainly 'deprive Palestinians of any prospects of a better future in their homeland.' Self-evidently and sadly, that would be one of the main aims. A few of Israeli's former Prime Ministers have ditched the coloured goggles in considering the plans for such a mislabelled city. Yair Lapid, who spent a mere six months in office in 2022, told Israeli Army Radio that it was 'a bad idea from every possible perspective – security, political, economic, logistical'. While preferring not to use the term 'concentration camp' with regards such a construction, incarcerating individuals by effectively preventing their exit would make such a term appropriate. Ehud Olmert's words to The Guardian were even less inclined to varnish the matter. 'If they [the Palestinians] will be deported into the new 'humanitarian city', then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing'. To create a camp that would effectively 'clean' more than half of Gaza of its population could hardly be understood as a plan to save Palestinians. 'It is to deport them, to push and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have at least.' Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg was also full of candour in expressing the view that the plan was 'for all facts and purposes a concentration camp' for Gaza's Palestinians, 'an overt crime against humanity under international humanitarian law'. This would also add the burgeoning grounds of illegality already being alleged in this month's petition by three Israeli reserve soldiers of Israel's Supreme Court questioning the legality of Operation Gideon's Chariots. Instancing abundant examples of forced transfer and expulsions of the Palestinian population during its various phases, commentators such as former chief of staff of the IDF, Moshe 'Bogy' Ya'alon, are unreserved about how such programs fare before international law. 'Evacuating an entire population? Call it ethnic cleansing, call it transfer, call it deportation, it's a war crime,' he told journalist Lucy Aharish. 'Israel's soldiers had been sent in 'to commit war crimes.' There is also some resistance from within the IDF, less on humanitarian grounds than practical ones. To even prepare such a plan in the midst of negotiations for a lasting ceasefire and finally resolving the hostage situation was the first telling problem. The other was how the IDF could feasibly undertake what would be a grand jailing experiment while preventing the infiltration of Hamas. This ghastly push by the Netanyahu government involves an enormous amount of wishful thinking. Ideally, the Palestinians will simply leave. If not, they will live in even more carceral conditions than they faced before October 2023. But to assume that this cartoon strip humanitarianism, papered over a ghoulish program of inflicted suffering, will add to the emptying well of Israeli security, is testament to how utterly desperate, and delusionary, the Israeli PM and his cabinet members have become.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
More than 95 percent of Gaza's agricultural land unusable, UN warns
Less than five percent of the Gaza Strip's cropland is able to be cultivated, according to a new geospatial assessment from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). The FAO described the situation as 'alarming' on Monday, warning that the destruction of agricultural infrastructure amid Israel's war on Gaza is 'further deteriorating food production capacity and exacerbating the risk of famine'. The joint assessment found that more than 80 percent of Gaza's total cropland has been damaged, while 77.8 percent of that land is now inaccessible to farmers. Only 688 hectares (1,700 acres), or 4.6 percent of cropland, remains available for cultivation. The destruction has extended to Gaza's greenhouses and water sources, with 71.2 percent of greenhouses and 82.8 percent of agricultural wells also damaged. 'This level of destruction is not just a loss of infrastructure – it is a collapse of Gaza's agrifood system and of lifelines,' said Beth Bechdol, FAO's deputy director-general. 'What once provided food, income, and stability for hundreds of thousands is now in ruins. With cropland, greenhouses, and wells destroyed, local food production has ground to a halt. Rebuilding will require massive investment – and a sustained commitment to restore both livelihoods and hope.'The findings follow the release of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis earlier this month, which warned that Gaza's entire population is facing a critical risk of famine after 19 months of war, mass displacement, and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid. While Israel announced last week that it would allow 'minimal' aid deliveries into Gaza, humanitarian organisations have warned that the trickle of supplies is failing to reach Gaza's starving population. Meanwhile, Israeli air attacks continue to kill dozens of Palestinians every day in Gaza. On Monday, Israeli forces bombed a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, sparking a fire and killing at least 36 Palestinians, including several children. More than 50 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the enclave since dawn, according to health officials.
Saba Yemen
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Global Observatory: Half million people at risk of starvation in Gaza
Beirut - Saba: A global hunger monitoring observatory warned on Monday that the entire population of the Gaza Strip remains at severe risk of famine, with half a million people facing the threat of starvation. The observatory described this as a significant deterioration since its last report in October. The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analyzed the period from April 1 to May 10 of this year and projected the situation until the end of September. Earlier on Monday, a report by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) revealed that nearly 81% of Gaza's arable land has experienced a sharp decline in crop health and density. The report attributed the destruction of agricultural land to bombardment, bulldozing, and what it described as "war dynamics." Amid the ongoing devastation of Gaza's livelihoods, enemy forces have completely wiped out livestock production, including poultry, cattle, sheep, milk, and egg sectors. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the lives of 2.1 million people in Gaza are at stake and called for an end to the nine-week-long food blockade. The UN office confirmed that its supplies are nearly depleted as the total siege on Gaza enters its third month. With U.S. support, the enemy has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, resulting in over 172,000 martyrs and wounded—mostly children and women—and more than 14,000 missing. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print
