Satellite images show Gaza's Rafah flattened for new Israeli concentration camp
Tel Aviv is moving forward with plans to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the ruins of Rafah, with those left outside reportedly set to be identified as 'Hamas terrorists' and eliminated
New satellite imagery published by Al-Jazeera reveals that Israeli forces have flattened most of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, as part of a large-scale plan to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population into a confined area.
The footage shows widespread demolition and land clearing, with rubble from destroyed neighborhoods leveled to create a vast, empty zone.
The site, located on the border with Egypt, is where Israel reportedly intends to relocate Gaza’s entire population—over two million people.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has publicly stated that the goal is to eventually move all Gaza residents into this zone, which the military describes as a “Hamas-free area" or “humanitarian city.”
According to reports in Hebrew media, the plan also calls for Palestinians caught outside these zones to be “identified as Hamas terrorists, providing legal justification for their elimination.”
The Israeli military began preparing for this mass displacement after unilaterally breaking the last ceasefire in March.
Before the war, Rafah was home to nearly 200,000 people.
The city suffered extensive damage during earlier bombing campaigns, but the destruction captured in recent satellite imagery is significantly more complete. Entire districts have been bulldozed and then smoothed out, with only a few structures left standing.
Among those spared are thirty-nine schools, seven medical centers, and one university.
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has already begun limited food distribution within the cleared areas. However, entering the site is fraught with danger.
The zone is under strict Israeli military control, and since the GHF began operations in late May, Israeli forces have reportedly shot and killed hundreds of Palestinians attempting to reach the aid centers.
The military’s intent appears to go beyond tactical destruction.
British-Israeli analyst and commentator Daniel Levy says that the Israeli government’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire is part of a wider effort to erase Gaza as a place for Palestinians to live. Israel is waging a “permanent war” designed to lead to ethnic cleansing, with the “humanitarian city” serving as the vehicle to do so.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a scathing editorial on the situation, calling the effort to concentrate the population of Gaza in Rafah a “criminal plan.”
The editorial warned that it represents a “moral and historic nadir” for the Israeli state and the Jewish people. “No matter how they try in Israel to wrap this move with laundered epithets,” the newspaper stated, “they are talking about a concentration camp.”