
Israel Kats presents cheaper and quicker plan for concentration camp
Plans would see Palestinians have to go through 'security screening' before entering, and once inside would not be allowed to leave.
The project is backed by Netanyahu. However, Netanyahu dismissed the first proposition, saying it was far too costly and complicated and ordered the military to propose something cheaper and quicker.
READ MORE: Refusal to suspend EU-Israel deal a 'cruel and unlawful betrayal' – Amnesty
The initial plan was estimated to cost between $2.7 and $4 billion.
The latest plan is estimated to cost about $1.2bn and the construction of the site – which would provide tents, electricity, water, and food – would take about two months, it said.
The report comes amid widespread criticism of the Israeli scheme that would move 600,000 already uprooted Palestinians into a small piece of land in southern Gaza – a scheme that critics say amounts to the establishment of a 'concentration camp' and ethnic cleansing.
Israel's former prime minister Ehud Olmert previously told the Guardian that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and plans for building a camp would mark an escalation.

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Evening Standard
38 minutes ago
- Evening Standard
Starmer rejects calls for Palestinian statehood as Trump flies to the UK
While the PM said he was 'unequivocal' about wanting to see a Palestinian state, he insisted this needed to be part of a 'wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis'.

Western Telegraph
42 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Starmer rejects calls for Palestinian statehood as Trump flies to the UK
Some 221 MPs have signed a letter urging the British Government to recognise the state of Palestine at a meeting of the UN next week. The UK would follow in the footsteps of France if it did, though Mr Trump claimed French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement was 'not going to change anything' ahead of flying to the UK on Friday. The appalling scenes in Gaza are unrelenting. The UK will pull every lever we have to get food and lifesaving support to Palestinians, and we will evacuate children who need urgent medical assistance. This humanitarian catastrophe must end. — Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) July 25, 2025 Sarah Champion, a senior Labour MP who co-ordinated the cross-party letter, said recognition 'would send a powerful symbolic message that we support the rights of the Palestinian people'. While the PM said he was 'unequivocal' about wanting to see a Palestinian state, he insisted this needed to be part of a 'wider plan which ultimately results in a two-state solution and lasting security for Palestinians and Israelis'. The UK and its allies must work together to broker a peace, he added, likening the effort to the coalition of the willing to support Ukraine. Sir Keir is expected to meet Mr Trump on Monday, as the US president stays in Scotland ahead of a full state visit later this year. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after he arrived at Prestwick Airport in Scotland (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) On Friday evening, amid mounting global anger over the starving population in Gaza, the Prime Minister also suggested the UK will play a role in dropping aid into Gaza by air. He welcomed that Israel said it would allow aid to be delivered by parachute to alleviate starvation in Gaza. The Prime Minister said the step had 'come far too late', but he insisted the UK will 'do everything we can to get aid in via this route'. I know the British people are sickened by what is happening. The images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying Sir Keir Starmer Britain is already working alongside Jordan to get aid onto planes, the PM signalled, also adding that children from Gaza in need of specialist medical care will be evacuated to the UK for treatment. In a video statement released on Friday, Sir Keir made plain his desire for a ceasefire. He said: 'I know the British people are sickened by what is happening. The images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying. 'The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.' An Israeli soldier stands beside humanitarian aid packages (AP) Meanwhile, in a statement released alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and France's Mr Macron, the Prime Minister urged Israel to stop restricting the flow of aid into Gaza. A call between the three leaders was expected on Friday, but has been postponed until the weekend. US-led peace talks in Qatar were cut short on Thursday, with Washington's special envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of a 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire'. The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire, and aid supplies would be ramped up as negotiations on a lasting truce took place.


The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Israel trying to deflect blame for widespread starvation in Gaza
Israel is pursuing an extensive PR effort to remove itself from blame for the starvation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is responsible. As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel's culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel's fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid. The Israeli effort has continued even as one of its own government ministers, the far-right heritage minister, Amichai Eliyahu, appeared to describe an unapologetic policy of starvation, genocide and ethnic cleansing that Israel has denied and said is not official policy. Amid evidence of a growing number of deaths from starvation in Gaza, including many child deaths, and shocking images and accounts of malnutrition, Israel has tried to deflect blame for what has been described by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) as 'man-made mass starvation'. That view was endorsed in a joint statement this week by 28 countries – including the UK – which explicitly blamed Israel. 'The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths,' the statement said. 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazan's of human dignity. 'We condemn the drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.' Some Israeli officials have been marginally more cautious in public statements, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promised vaguely that there 'will be no starvation' in Gaza. But a recent off-the-record briefing for journalists by a senior Israeli security official has pushed a more uncompromising position, stating that there 'is no hunger in Gaza' and claiming that images of starving children on front pages around the world showed children with 'underlying diseases'. David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesperson, told Sky News this week: 'There is no famine in Gaza – there is a famine of the truth.' Contradicting that claim, Médecins Sans Frontières said a quarter of the young children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers it had screened at its clinics last week were malnourished, a day after the UN said one in five children in Gaza City were suffering from malnutrition. Israel's attempts to deflect blame, however, are undermined by its single and overarching responsibility: that as an occupying power in a conflict, it is legally obliged to ensure the provision of means of life for those under occupation. And while Israel has consistently tried to blame Hamas for intercepting food aid, that claim has been undermined by a leaked US assessment, seen by Reuters, which found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group of US-funded humanitarian supplies. Examining 156 incidents of theft or loss of US-funded supplies reported by US aid partner organisations between October 2023 and May 2025, it said it found 'no reports alleging Hamas' benefited from US-funded supplies. Israel has also recently intensified efforts to blame the UN for the problems with aid distribution, citing a 'lack of cooperation from the international community and international organisations'. Israel's claims are contradicted by clear evidence of its efforts to undermine aid distribution. Despite international warnings of the humanitarian risks posed by banning Unrwa, the main UN agency for Palestinians and the organisation with the most experience in Gaza, from Israel, its operations were closed down, complicating aid efforts. Instead Israel, backed by the US, has relied on the private, inexperienced and controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation; its sites have been the focus of numerous mass killings of desperate Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. Israel's attempts to hamper with aid efforts have continued. Last week it said it would not renew the work visa of Jonathan Whittall, the most senior UN aid official in Gaza; and a UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told reporters on Thursday that Israel had rejected eight of the 16 UN requests to transport humanitarian aid in Gaza the previous day. He added that two other requests, initially approved, led to staff facing obstruction on the ground as he described a pattern of 'bureaucratic, logistical, administrative and other operational obstacles imposed by Israeli authorities'. All of which has injected a new sense of urgency into the catastrophe in Gaza as UN agencies warned that they were on the brink of running out of specialised food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children. 'Most malnutrition treatment supplies have been consumed and what is left at facilities will run out very soon if not replenished,' a WHO spokesperson said on Thursday. More starvation deaths appear inevitable.