Israeli defence minister plans to move Gaza's population to camp in Rafah | BBC News

Israel's defence minister says he has instructed its military to prepare a plan to move all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south of the territory, Israeli media reports say. Israel Katz told journalists on Monday he wanted to establish a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians – and eventually the whole 2.1 million population. He said the goal was to bring people inside after security screening to ensure they were not Hamas operatives, and that they would not be allowed to leave. If conditions allowed, he added, construction would begin during a 60‑day ceasefire that Israel and Hamas are trying to negotiate. The UN has previously warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory's civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and "tantamount to ethnic cleansing". There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.