Monday 14/July/2025 – 10:12 AM
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that what the Israeli occupation government calls a humanitarian city that intends to construct on the ruins of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which is only a mass detention camp for the Palestinians, noting that forcing civilians to enter it is ethnic cleansing.
Establishing a human city in Rafah Palestinian
In an interview with the British Guardian newspaper, Olmert considered that Israel is already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, warning that the establishment of this camp would be a serious escalation in the context of these violations.
Olmert explained that the Palestinians, according to the plan presented by Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, and supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will not be allowed to leave the city except towards other countries, which means imposing coercive isolation on them.
He added that the deportation of the Palestinians to the so -called human city will inevitably explain as an ethnic cleansing, stressing that if hundreds of thousands of people are crowded inside a closed camp, this can only be explained as a systematic systematic displacement.
He pointed out that talking about protecting civilians does not seem sincere in light of the extremist discourse that the Israeli government marks, which includes calls to purify Gaza and establish new settlements, asking: When a camp is built with the aim of clearing more than half of the Gaza Strip, how can it be understood as an effort to protect the population? It is expelled and excluded only.
Olmert, who took over the government between 2006 and 2009, considered that the extremist ministers in the current government are the enemy from within, noting that they are pushing towards more violence and settlement expansion at the expense of Israel’s long -term security.
Commenting on the violations committed by the settlers against the Palestinians in the West Bank, Olmert said that the repeated attacks against the Palestinian villages that are not forgiven, pointing out that what is known as young hills has become an integrated system of protected violence and supported by the Israeli authorities.
He added that the escalation of international anger towards Israel is not only due to anti -Semitism, but is mainly related to the massacres and violations that the world sees through screens and networks, saying: We deceive ourselves when we return all criticisms to hatred or anti -Semitism … People watch what is happening and feel that Israel has exceeded all red lines.
Olmert stressed that public opinion inside Israel will only change when the state begins to pay an international political price, criticizing the Israeli media for its biased coverage and ignoring violence against the Palestinians.
He pointed out that, despite his support for the military operation against Hamas in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks, but by last spring, when the government abandoned negotiations in public, it was convinced that Israel is committing war crimes, describing what happens as a tragic deviation of a war that began motivated by self -defense and turned into something else.
He believed that the responsibility not only falls on direct orders from military leaders, but also to overlook the army for field practices that killed large numbers of innocent civilians, which prompted him to publicly accuse the Israeli government of responsibility for these crimes.
Despite everything that happened, Olmert expressed his adherence to the possibility of achieving a two -state solution, noting that he is currently working with former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al -Qaddah to push this direction through international channels.
Olmert concluded his speech by referring to his mockery of Netanyahu’s nomination of US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, while the latter himself is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes.
