Concentration Camps? Ethnic Cleansing? Former PM: Israel Committing War Crimes

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert delivered a scathing rebuke of Israel’s planned humanitarian zone in Rafah, telling The Guardian on Sunday that the initiative constitutes a “concentration camp” and would amount to ethnic cleansing if Palestinians are forcibly relocated into it.

“This is a concentration camp. I’m sorry,” said Olmert, referring to the Israeli proposal to construct a controlled humanitarian city south of the Morag route, intended to separate Gaza’s civilian population from Hamas.

“If they are pushed into this so-called humanitarian city, you can call that ethnic cleansing,” he added. “It hasn’t happened yet—but this is the inevitable interpretation of any attempt to build a camp for hundreds of thousands of people. When you build a camp to ‘cleanse’ more than half of Gaza, it’s not to save Palestinians. It’s to push them out. There’s no other way to read it.”

Olmert’s comments follow a recent security briefing by Israel’s defense minister, who confirmed plans to relocate large numbers of civilians to what has been described as a secure enclave, separated from ongoing military activity.

Citing months of inflammatory rhetoric by Israeli ministers—including references to “cleansing” Gaza and proposals to build Israeli settlements there—Olmert rejected the government’s claim that the humanitarian zone is designed to protect civilians.

He said that by spring of this year, after Israel “publicly and brutally” abandoned ceasefire negotiations, he concluded that the state was committing war crimes.

“I’m ashamed and heartbroken,” said Olmert. “A war that began as self-defense has become something else entirely. That’s why I decided to speak out. What else can I do to change the narrative, except acknowledge these evils and make sure the world knows that there are other voices in Israel?”

Olmert added that he still believes a two-state solution is possible, and that he has been working with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa to advance an international resolution. He suggested that a historic agreement ending the war in Gaza could be exchanged for normalization with Saudi Arabia—if only Prime Minister Netanyahu were willing to accept it.

He also expressed disbelief over Netanyahu’s recent recommendation that Donald Trump receive the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.

Turning to the West Bank, Olmert said he sees ongoing “systematic, brutal, and criminal” actions by what he called “the hilltop horrors”—a reference to violent settler groups.

“There’s no way they could act so consistently and extensively without an organized framework of support and protection provided by Israeli authorities in Judea and Samaria,” Olmert said.

He concluded by warning that Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir represent “a greater long-term threat to Israel’s security than any external enemy.”

“These people,” he said, “are the enemy from within.”