Palestinian rights groups are raising the alarm over a chilling new plan to seal off displaced civilians in a closed camp in Rafah, warning that Israel is laying the groundwork for mass internment under the guise of humanitarian aid. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has condemned the proposal as a dangerous step toward the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza, a strategy it says amounts to demographic engineering and apartheid.

The so-called “humanitarian zone” mentioned by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz is not seen as a place of safety, but a cage. With restricted entry, tight surveillance, and no exit allowed, the plan would confine around 600,000 Palestinians to a militarised enclosure. For a population already shattered by relentless bombardment and starvation, this would mark yet another level of control and suffering.

Euro-Med argues that under siege, displacement is never truly voluntary. In Gaza, where homes are rubble and food and medicine have run dry, people are not choosing to move, they are being cornered. To label such coercion as “humanitarian” is, according to the group, a calculated distortion of language designed to shield Israel from legal and moral accountability.

What is unfolding in Rafah, they warn, is not a temporary measure, it is part of a broader strategy to depopulate Gaza. The international community is being urged to see through the euphemisms and act decisively. If left unchecked, the camp in Rafah could become a prototype for permanent displacement, an open-air prison for a people already exhausted by war and exile.