On the 77th annual commemoration of the Nakba, Al-Haq raises the alarm on Israel’s concrete plans to colonise and resettle Gaza, highlighting how these developments contribute to the ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people.
The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe”, aptly refers to the mass dispossession, forced displacement, and violence endured by Palestinians between 1947–49, when the Zionist movement laid the groundwork for the establishment of the State of Israel. During this period, approximately 800,000 Palestinians, around 80 percent of the population, were expelled from their homes and ancestral lands. Zionist militias and the Israeli military –like modern day settlers acting with the full support of the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) – destroyed 531 villages and massacred more than 15,000 Palestinians, leading to the near-total destruction of Palestinian society. While the date of the Nakba is commonly regarded, and commemorated, as 15 May 1948, it is not a closed chapter in history nor is it a relic of the past. Rather, it is an ongoing process integral to the realisation of Israel’s Zionist settler-colonial agenda.
As with all settler-colonial projects, Zionism depends on the logic of elimination, which is pursued through a range of violent policies and practices, including: wilful killing; unlawful detention; forcible displacement; an apartheid regime; incremental annexation; the permanent denial of return; and genocide. Israel’s methods of elimination may vary in intensity, but its objective remains constant: the erasure of Palestinian people, culture, and memory. What we are witnessing today in Gaza is the continuation of the genocidal Nakba, forcing on Palestinians mass displacement and death.
Gaza – the latest frontier in Israel settler-colonial enterprise
Israel’s intention to eliminate the Palestinian population in Gaza and to annex the territory through permanent occupation and resettlement is not novel. As early as 24 October 2023, a leaked document from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence revealed that discussions of a ‘Gaza Nakba 2023’ are not confined to rhetoric by far-right politicians, but are reflected in an official ‘postwar plan’ advocating the elimination of Gaza’s forcibly displaced population through their transfer to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and other countries—an option described as yielding “positive and long-term results”. On 28 January 2024, Israeli settlers along with a number of high-ranking Israeli officials, including 12 ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, as well as Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, attended the ‘Return to Gaza’ Conference, explicitly calling for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip. In April 2024, retired National Security Adviser General Giora Eiland developed a plan – subsequently coined the ‘General’s Plan’ – that would eliminate the entire population of North Gaza. Implemented in October 2024, the ‘General’s Plan’ involved a siege on northern Gaza and the forcible displacement of all Palestinians there to south of Wadi Gaza, in addition to heavy bombardment in order to pressure the population to relocate and, in effect, bringing on their destruction. On 21 October 2024, when the blockade of North Gaza was entering its third week, hundreds of right-wing Israelis congregated in a military zone near Gaza’s perimeter to celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot by calling to erect settlements inside the besieged Gaza. At the gathering, stands representing Netanyahu’s Likud party and Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party were again present.
In the first half of 2025, Israel has continued to exploit the international community’s failure to respond to its unprecedented genocidal violence and mass forcible displacement of Palestinians, leveraging its impunity to further advance its Zionist settler-colonial agenda in Gaza. On 21 March, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that the army will permanently seize and annex territory in Gaza if captives are not released. By April, Katz was forming a bureau for “voluntary emigration”, intended to facilitate the transfer of Gaza’s population to other countries – an act which amounts to deportation, which constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and when carried out with an intent to destroy, in conditions unfit for survival of the group, an act of genocide.
These inflammatory statements served as a precursor to the far-right Israeli government’s most explicit declaration of its colonial ambitions in Gaza to date. On 5 May, the day after IOF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir announced that the Israeli military will call up tens of thousands of reservists to expand their assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously approved a new plan to “conquer Gaza and hold the territory under its control”. Speaking about the planned military offensive on X, Netanyahu stated:
Let it be clear: we will not enter Gaza and then pull out as we’ve done in the past. We will not send reserve forces to temporarily control the area and then leave it with only sporadic raids on what remains. That will not happen… What we’re planning is the exact opposite.
The new offensive, named ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots’, sets out Israel’s vision for the future of Gaza and harks back to events in 1948 - specifically, the mass killing and large-scale forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland with no right to return, along with the near-complete destruction of Palestinian society at the hands of Zionist forces. ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots’ envisions Israel having full, permanent military control of Gaza subsequent to the systematic forced displacement of Palestinians and the weaponisation of life-saving humanitarian aid. What this means in reality, and as Minister Smotrich confirmed, “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” with Palestinians fleeing in “great numbers”. Strengthened by blind support from the United States and Third States indifference to the future of Palestinians, as well as a toothless international legal system, Smotrich propounded: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation’”, before adding that once Operation Gideon’s Chariots begins there will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages”.
These developments represent the latest chapter in Israel’s longstanding project of settler-colonial erasure, racial domination and control, aimed at eliminating Palestinian presence, sovereignty and long-held hopes for self-determination. As an imperialist colonisation motivated by concepts of racial supremacy that attempts to justify the appropriation of stolen land, this project continues to drive the expansion of illegal settlements and the consolidation of Jewish-Israeli control. The aforementioned explicit statements of intent—not only to sustain the genocidal campaign but to secure permanent territorial control over the Gaza Strip following the destruction or displacement of its population—are not merely rhetorical; they are accompanied by concrete measures actively pursued in furtherance of this lethal objective.
Carving up Gaza with Corridors
In establishing corridors across the Gaza Strip, the IOF has both further fragmented Palestinian territory and limited the freedom of movement of its population by confining it to areas unfit for human survival. Furthermore, the tactic of systematically dividing the territory – in preparation for subsequent occupation – is integral to facilitating the mass forcible transfer of Palestinians, which in turn makes it easier to gain control over and subsequently settle, before annexing, each area.
Just three months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, in January 2024, Israel announced its intent to re-occupy the Philadelphi Corridor. In May 2024, it achieved this goal and, despite the now-shattered ceasefire agreement reached in January requiring Israel to withdraw from the corridor on day 50, it has maintained its presence and control over the buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza, which includes the Rafah Crossing (previously the only entry and exit point into Gaza not controlled by Israel), in contravention of the Camp David Accords.
The Netzarim Corridor, named after the illegal Israeli settlement of Netzarim that existed in Gaza prior to Israel’s military withdrawal in 2005 and presumably a nod to its aspirations to reestablish the settlement, is a 6km strip of land that splits Gaza in two, created in the first months of the genocidal campaign. Stretching from the Israeli boundary with Gaza City to the Mediterranean Sea, the Netzarim Corridor has been integral to Israel’s manufactured north/south divide of the Gaza Strip. Beyond offering the IOF significant logistical advantages, allowing it to supply troops stationed in central Gaza and Gaza City directly and providing a base from which to launch violent military attacks, the land grab has been used to monitor, control, detain and displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians throughout the past year and a half. The Israeli military has been steadily expanding its presence in the corridor during this time, erecting checkpoints and bases - acts which clearly imply an intent to maintain a long-term presence in the area.
More recently, Israel carried out yet another land grab when constructing the Morag Corridor. Located in the area between Khan Younis and Rafah, the Morag Corridor, named after an illegal Israeli settlement established in the area between 1972 and 2005 (and another hint as to Israel’s future aspirations), stretches from east to west across the Gaza Strip and includes parts of what the Israeli military had previously designated a “humanitarian” or “safe” zone to which they had forcibly displaced Palestinians. The aim is to create a buffer zone in southern Gaza which stretches from the Egyptian border to the outskirts of Khan Younis, that includes the entire city of Rafah — around 20 percent of the Strip. The separation of Khan Younis and Rafah is part of the IOF’s plan to implement President Trump’s proposal of removing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. By severing Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, Minister of Defence Israel Katz confirmed that Israel had made the entire area between the Philadelphi Corridor and the Morag Corridor part of the “Israeli security zone” to which Palestinians throughout Gaza would be forced to relocate to as a result of entire cities being evacuated, other “security zones” being expanded, and humanitarian aid being tactically withheld.
When combined with: land illegally appropriated by Israel when constructing the various corridors; the illegal expansion of buffer zones or “no-go areas”; and the dozens of “evacuation” orders issued since 18 March 2025, 70 percent of Gaza is now inaccessible to Palestinians. In conjunction with 92 percent of housing units being destroyed or damaged, Palestinians are faced with an ever-shrinking humanitarian space and the reality that their homes, filled with all their belongings, have been reduced to rubble.
In further carving up the Gaza Strip, Israel is not just cementing its control over the territory – it is cramming Palestinian children, women and men into smaller, more densely packed areas that are devoid of all necessary supplies, infrastructure, and services. The natural result of confining Gaza’s forcibly transferred population to the south of the territory, and intensely targeting the area with heavy weaponry, is that they will either be forced to find a way to enter a third country, be killed by the IOF - either immediately or as a result of injuries sustained that cannot be treated due to Israel’s decimation of the healthcare system and obstruction of medical supplies - or be subject to a slow death from the inhumane conditions Israel has carefully manufactured which they cannot escape, including a man-made famine and entirely preventable disease epidemics.
As Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, rightly noted in March 2025, what is happening to Palestinians is a “tragedy foretold”. History has shown that Israel’s strategy for a “Greater Israel” free of Palestinians relies on forcibly displacing and repressing the population. For 19 months, the world has borne witness to Israel’s ongoing practice of forcibly displacing Gaza’s population through so-called “evacuation orders”, which are sold to the international community as proof of it abiding by the rules of war when in fact such acts fuel Israel’s genocide in breach of the Genocide Convention. Palestinians, dehumanised to the point of being a mere number in a rising death toll, have been herded into areas in which Israel has created conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction. Israel’s demographic manipulation in Gaza, an obvious precursor to permanently seizing the territory, has become a proven means of dispossessing the indigenous people of their land and dismantling what remains of Palestinian life. While Israel has tried, tested, and perfected this strategy – now an integral part of the ongoing Nakba - the international community continues to stand by in silence.
Aid as a tool for forced displacement
Part and parcel of Israel’s strategy of territorial division and demographic manipulation in order to permanently seize Palestinian land, and Gaza in particular, is its tactical obstruction of aid. As 2025 has progressed, so too has Israel’s use of starvation, deprivation, and denial of humanitarian aid in pursuit of its Zionist settler-colonial ambitions. The severe restrictions on humanitarian access are not merely collateral consequences of war; they constitute a deliberate attempt to both forcibly displace and destroy Gaza’s Palestinian population. As highlighted in Al-Haq’s report, ‘How to Hide a Genocide: The Role of Evacuation Orders and Safe Zones in Israel’s Genocidal Campaign in Gaza’, Israeli policies force civilians to choose between starvation, dehydration and disease or forced displacement to areas with only marginally better conditions, yet still subject to relentless attack, in order to have any chance of survival. Yet, safety in Gaza remains elusive.
As the United Nations Relief Chief has warned: “Aid – and the civilian lives it saves – must never be a bargaining chip. Blocking aid kills.” Knowing this – and alongside placing Gaza under a complete siege for nearly three months – Israeli authorities have sought to dismantle the existing humanitarian aid infrastructure coordinated by the United Nations and over 200 humanitarian partners. In its place, it has proposed an aid distribution plan under the full control of the Israeli military. Under this plan, aid for approximately 2.1 million people would be funnelled through Israeli checkpoints and distributed under strict conditions, involving private contractors, including United States private security firms (Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions), and subjecting Palestinian families to dangerous journeys through militarized zones to access basic sustenance. This approach contravenes core humanitarian principles and is intentionally designed to entrench further control over Gaza and its population, who will be forced to move south of the Morag corridor or starve - thereby accelerating Israel’s destruction of Palestinians.
The plan also isolates and deprives Gaza’s most vulnerable—particularly the elderly, disabled, and those unable to travel – by limiting the distribution of lifesaving supplies to six encampments in the south and effectively weaponizing their immobility. It does not address humanitarian need; rather, it uses food as a means of control, forcing Palestinians into rapidly shrinking spots of land and coercing their movement under threat of starvation. The collective punishment of and genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people is all taking place while more than 240,000 tonnes of supplies are ready to be dispatched from warehouses outside Gaza and trucks are queued up at the perimeter waiting to enter the Gaza Strip.
This calculated manipulation of humanitarian access reflects a broader strategy: to erase the Palestinian presence in Gaza through a combination of siege, forced transfer, and territorial fragmentation. It is not a humanitarian response—it is an ongoing Nakba, a clear extension of Israel’s settler-colonial project, using aid as both a lever of control and a weapon of displacement in service of genocide and annexation.
Conclusion
Since 1948, Israel has been relentless in its efforts to erase Palestinians as a people, a country, and even an idea. The Nakba is not a relic of the past. It is not history. Rather, it is an ongoing process integral to the realisation of Israel’s imperialist, colonial aims. It is the everyday lived experience of Palestinians. The material evidence of this is found in: the scars on Palestinian bodies; the mass graves across the Gaza Strip; apartheid laws and policies; Israeli prisons and detention centres; the rapid expansion of illegal settlements and outposts; the number of Palestinian families forcibly displaced; the total destruction of Gaza; the demolition of Palestinian homes; and the systematic erasure of Palestinian culture and memory. As expressed by Mohammed El-Kurd, “living on the brink of displacement almost distorts your sense of time”. For Palestinians, time is not linear—it is marked by cycles of dispossession, bombardment, and exile set against a backdrop of insurmountable racial segregation, oppression, colonial violence and erasure.
It is important to note that the success or failure of the Zionist settler-colonial regime hinges on the international community’s ability to adopt a stance that clearly rejects any resettlement of the Gaza Strip or demographic or territorial interference therein, along with the expansion of illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank, as well as any legislative and policy decisions that impact Palestinian sovereignty over the occupied territory. Third States must enforce the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which has explicitly recognised Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as unlawful and ordered that it end unconditionally immediately. Moreover, in the face of Israel’s complete disregard for international law and the ICJ’s three binding orders on provisional measures, Third States must immediately take urgent and concrete measures to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal campaign and hold it criminally accountable for its acts of genocide and grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. This includes targeted sanctions and divestment, halting all arms transfers, banning trade with Israel —especially by European Union members, as one of Israel’s major trading partners, and prosecuting those responsible for crimes against the Palestinian people. All States must also protect and support the International Criminal Court, including by implementing the arrest warrants issued against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallat.
The international community bears collective responsibility for the unimaginable suffering of Palestinians in Palestine and in exile. It is the world’s silence that has allowed the Nakba to continue for 77 years, and allowed for the continued hardship of Palestinian refugees and their descendants —over 70 percent of today’s population in Gaza— who are denied their right of return to their lands and properties. Moving away from words of condemnation to decisive, targeted action is necessary and overdue. Without it, the Nakba will not end. The Nakba will not end until justice, accountability, and self-determination are realised and Palestine is finally liberated and apartheid is dismantled.