Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli far-right government ploughing ahead with a plan to build what Hadash have described as a concentration camp for Palestinians on the ruins of Rafah in occupied southern Gaza, in the face of a growing backlash at home and abroad.

A leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, Nimrod Flashenberg, told Al Jazeera that – for the Israeli government – there was merit to the plan, both from human rights’ perspective, and from the perspective of ethnically cleansing Gaza, and providing an end goal that Israel’s leaders could define as a success. Flashenberg added that the plan would effectively create an “ethnic cleansing terminal,” from which, once people were separated from their original homes, “it makes it easier to expel them elsewhere.”

Leading Hadash members during a demonstration in Haifa to protest the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza. The protesters urged Israelis to refuse to participate in the genocide and demanded freedom for Gaza. Demonstrators held signs bearing the names and photos of children killed by Israel in Gaza, June 1, 2025 (Photo: Yahel Gazit /Activestills)

“Of course it complicates ceasefire negotiations, but so what?” Flashenberg said, referring to the ongoing talks aimed at bringing about an initial 60-day ceasefire. “Nothing has really changed. It’s possible, of course, that with work on the concentration camp under way, Hamas might still accept the ceasefire and hope that things might change.”

“It’s part of their entire colonialist mentality,” Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman, added. “They really do believe that they can do anything: that they can move all of these people around as if they’re not even humans. Even if imprisoning just the first 600,000 people suggested by Defense Minister Israel Katz is inconceivable. How can you do that without it leading to some kind of massacre?” “That they’re even talking about criminal acts without every state in the world condemning them is dangerous,” she says.

Senior lawyers in Israeli universities have questioned the legality of the move and said that is “a crime against humanity and war crime.” Military lawyers are reported to have “raised concerns” that Israel might face accusations of forced displacement, and the open letter from several Israeli legal scholars is more explicit, slamming the proposal as “manifestly illegal under international law.”

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=32825