July 14, 2025
Israel’s small war cabinet met on Sunday evening [13/07/2025] with the aim of preventing the collapse of the Doha hostage and ceasefire talks. The key issue remains Hamas’s demand for Israel to withdraw from southern Gaza, the extent of the withdrawal and, in particular, whether the IDF can maintain the so-called Morag Corridor that bisects Gaza. After Israel has already accepted US Special Envoy Witkoff’s mediation proposal on several occasions, the talks remain stalled due to Hamas’ demands.
The other main topic of the meeting was Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s initiative to build a so-called “humanitarian city” in Rafah, southern Gaza. Katz had asked the Israeli military (IDF) to prepare a plan for the war cabinet meeting based on the initiative.
A tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza, last year. Credit:Hatem Ali/Associated Press
Humanitarian city?
The Israeli government says the “humanitarian city” will initially house 600,000 Palestinians currently living in tents in the overcrowded al-Mawas area on the southern Gaza Strip. Eventually, the entire population of more than two million people in the area will be relocated there.
Israeli media reports say construction could take more than a year and cost up to 15 billion shekels ($4.5 billion). Unnamed military officials said the project “would take three to five months from the start of construction until the humanitarian city is operational.”
Proponents of the “humanitarian city” plan argue that its establishment would be the first opportunity for an entity outside Hamas to take control of the area. Preliminary plans describe the camps as “large” and “voluntary” places where Gazans could “temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare for relocation if they so wish.”
According to opponents of the plan, a “humanitarian city” would violate international law because civilians would be prevented from returning to their homes in the north, which would be a form of ethnic cleansing.
My analysis
The planned “humanitarian city” in Rafah has been subject to justified criticism – even descriptions of a concentration camp have been used – and there have been demands, among others, from Palestinians and international organizations for the right of Gazans to return to their homes. In my opinion, this criticism completely ignores the real situation and the time frame. Here are a few points of view that clarify this:
- Firstly, Gaza is currently largely a war zone and I believe that every effort should be made to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the combat zones.
- Secondly, when the fighting sometimes ends with a ceasefire agreement and/or the withdrawal/elimination of Hamas in Gaza, a contributing factor is that most of Gaza is a ruined and uninhabitable demolition site, meaning that Gazans no longer have homes to return to.
- Thirdly, making Gaza habitable requires clearance work, in which booby traps and explosives in the ruins are dismantled, and the tunnel weapons depots and tunnels are generally destroyed. This clearance work is estimated to last at least a year and even longer if bodies are searched for under the rubble. More time and impact will be required if the contaminated soil is replaced, for example to remove asbestos, a popular building material used in Gaza.
- Fourthly, after the clearance work, new construction can begin and, if financing is arranged, it is estimated to last at least 10-15 years.
In light of the above situation, the “return home” of the Gazans, the Israeli religious far-right’s dream of a new settlement in Gaza, and Trump’s Riviera tourist destinations are not realistic for a decade or so. Instead, humanitarian aid – regardless of different visions of the future – was needed long ago and is now even more urgent.
I personally have considered the so-called Sinai option to be the best solution, where the Gazans and other Palestinians could establish their future-oriented autonomy/state, but at least so far Egypt has not agreed to provide “wasteland” for this purpose. I think that a “humanitarian city” offers the best emergency solution at this moment until better ones emerge. (About the Sinai option earlier, for example, in my analysis A Day After the Gaza War -Plan by Ariel Rusila )
“Final relief”
Finally, some trivia: Iranian authorities simulated a nuclear attack on Israel in the image they edited below, and most recently, religious scholars threatened destruction on both Israel and the United States during Friday prayers.
It is understandable that Israel takes Iran’s nuclear weapons program seriously with these dream images. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned President Trump during his recent visit to the United States that if Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons, Israel will respond with new military strikes.
This is the English version of an article that first appeared in the online publication Ariel-Israel in Finnish.
