Gaza plan likened to Nazi camps, sparks condemnation and political storm

A political firestorm was triggered on Wednesday by likening Israel’s proposal for the displaced Gazans to Nazi‐era concentration camps.

Channel 12 foreign-news editor Arad Nir triggered a political firestorm on Wednesday by likening Israel’s proposal to move displaced Gazans into a fenced “humanitarian city” near Rafah to a Nazi‐era concentration camp, a comparison that the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial condemned as a grave distortion of the Shoah.

During the station’s afternoon newscast, Nir said the government intended “to funnel the population into one place … that is, in effect, a concentration camp,” repeating the term after anchor Almaz Mengistu questioned its appropriateness.

Hours later the Jerusalem-based memorial issued an unusually sharp statement. “The use of the term ‘concentration camp,’ given its well-known historical meaning for the Jewish people, is grave, out of place and distorts the meaning of the Holocaust. The Nazis created concentration camps with the intent of annihilating the Jews, driven by a murderous ideology,” the institution said, urging public figures to avoid rhetoric that “trivializes or politicizes the Shoah.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli called for Nir’s dismissal, arguing that the remark “hands a propaganda gift to Israel’s enemies.” Several coalition MKs said they would file complaints with the Knesset Ethics Committee, while right-wing commentators accused the veteran journalist of “Holocaust relativism.” Opposition lawmakers defended Nir’s right to raise moral concerns but criticized the terminology as “needlessly inflammable.”

The relocation plan at the center of the row

Defense Minister Israel Katz this week revived a blueprint to establish a tent-and-container enclave on the ruins of Rafah that would initially house some 600,000 Gazans now crowded into the Mawasi coastal strip. Katz said international agencies would run the enclave, screened to exclude Hamas fighters and supplied with food and medicine.

Human-rights lawyers and a group of reserve IDF officers have already warned that sealing civilians inside a guarded zone could violate international law and constitute forcible transfer.