Ex-Israeli prime minister calls Gaza 'humanitarian city' a concentration camp

Israel's plan to forcibly confine more than two million Palestinians to a small area in the southern Gaza Strip amounts to a "concentration camp", former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.

"It is a concentration camp. I am sorry," the 79-year-old told The Guardian on Sunday, when asked about a plan outlined by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week, which would see an initial 600,000 Palestinians held in an area built on the ruins of Rafah city. 

According to Katz, Palestinians in the area would undergo security screenings and would not be allowed to leave. Eventually, the entire civilian population would be concentrated in the same location.  

Katz also said Palestinians would then be encouraged to "voluntarily" leave the Gaza Strip for other countries as part of an "emigration plan".

Responding to the proposal, Olmert said: "If [Palestinians] will be deported into the new 'humanitarian city', then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing", adding that ethnic cleansing was the "inevitable interpretation" of the plan. 

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