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Taoiseach calls Israel's 'humanitarian city' plan for Gaza a 'concentration camp idea'

Taoiseach calls Israel's 'humanitarian city' plan for Gaza a 'concentration camp idea'

The Journal6 days ago
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has described Israel's plan to move the population of Gaza into a restricted zone in the south of the territory as 'a concentration camp idea'.
Israel has described the planned camp as a 'humanitarian city', but Martin's comparison echoed the opinion of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who told
The Guardian
it would constitute a concentration camp.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz first unveiled the plan during a press briefing last week. It envisions building from scratch a closed zone in southern Gaza during a potential 60-day ceasefire.
According to Katz, the area would initially house around 600,000 displaced people from southern Gaza and include four aid distribution sites managed by international organisations.
The entire civilian population of Gaza – more than two million people – would eventually be relocated there under the plan.
'In our view, it's a war crime to attempt to do what Israel is going to attempt to do with population of Gaza,' Martin said this morning.
He was responding to former minister for justice Alan Shatter's description of a proposed law that would ban trade in goods with illegal Israeli settlements as 'Nazi legislation', a comment the former Fine Gael TD made in an interview with Newstalk this morning.
'I think if he used that language, that's shocking,' Martin said of Shatter's comment.
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'What we've witnessed is the continuing collective punishment of the people of Gaza, and I think former minister Shatter should perhaps focus on that a bit more and not just completely dismiss the appalling murder and killing of innocent children and civilians in Gaza, which has shocked the world.'
Martin added that 'the level of barbaric behaviour is something that genuinely has shocked people, and it should stop'.
'That war should stop.'
Shatter is due to address the Committee of Foreign Affairs this afternoon representing the Ireland-Israel Association, when he will voice his opposition to the proposed legislation.
Martin also referenced former prime minister Olmert's comments about the plan to push the people of Gaza into a concentration camp.
Olmert told RTÉ's Morning Ireland today that the plan could constitute a war crime, 'something that is totally intolerable and unacceptable'.
'The argument that it will become a humanitarian camp is ridiculous,' Olmert said.
'Those who propose it say time and again that they're against any humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, so altogether clearing a large part of the Gaza in order to make it available for resettling of Israeli settlements is something that may be interpreted as ethnic cleansing.'
With reporting from AFP
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