UN, Ex-Prime Ministers Slam Israel’s Gaza Strategy as ‘Second Nakba’
As Israel pushes forward with its controversial plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza, two of the country’s former prime ministers have publicly condemned the proposal, warning it bears the hallmarks of forced internment and even ethnic cleansing.
Yair Lapid and Ehud Olmert, both influential political figures, joined a growing chorus of domestic and international concern over the Israeli government’s strategy to relocate more than 600,000 displaced Palestinians from al-Mawasi into a designated area near Rafah. Lapid, speaking to Israeli Army Radio, rejected the plan on security, political, and humanitarian grounds, saying bluntly, “If exiting it is prohibited, then it is a concentration camp.”
Olmert went further in remarks to The Guardian, asserting that the government’s intent resembles ethnic cleansing. “If they build a camp where they plan to ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza… it is not to save Palestinians. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away.”
Since April, satellite imagery reveals a surge in demolitions in Rafah—rising from 15,800 buildings destroyed to over 28,600 by July. The plan, widely criticized, would ultimately attempt to move Gaza’s entire population—more than two million people—into what human rights officials fear will become de facto detention zones.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), warned that the relocation could amount to a “second Nakba,” referencing the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians. “This would create massive concentration camps,” Lazzarini said, “depriving Palestinians of any future in their homeland.”
Meanwhile, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—a US- and Israeli-backed private group—has proposed establishing “humanitarian transit areas” for Palestinians to be “deradicalized” and possibly relocated abroad. Despite marketing these as voluntary, critics argue the underlying motive is population removal. Israel now allows GHF, not the UN, to distribute food in Gaza. Since May, over 800 Palestinians seeking aid at GHF sites have been killed.
According to experts, this is no longer a humanitarian operation—it’s a calculated strategy. Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, warned: “Israel’s goal is the engineered collapse of Palestinian society. They’re creating a system where the only choice left is to starve or be shot.”
As international pressure mounts, the Israeli government continues to defend the initiative as voluntary and necessary. But for many, the optics and intentions paint a starkly different picture.
