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Media’s Grotesque Holocaust Dog Whistle: ‘Internment Camp’ Lie Built on Retracted Reuters Claim
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The Guardian described Israel as having drawn up “plans for an internment camp on ruins of Rafah,” in an analysis piece by Emma Graham-Harrison, the paper’s newly appointed Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent.
The BBC reported “plans to move Gaza’s population to camp in Rafah.”
ABC Australia ran a headline referring to the construction of a “large-scale camp,” citing so-called “human rights lawyers” who had denounced the proposal.
Germany’s DW News presented it as a foregone conclusion: “Israel to confine Gazans in camp near border.”
And the Irish Times went even further, dropping the pretense. A recent op-ed accused Israel of creating “ghettos” for Gazans.
The implication is chillingly clear. The Jewish State, they suggest, is now echoing the crimes once committed against its own people. Israel, the inheritor of Holocaust memory, has become a Nazi regime. The grotesque irony is not lost on the editors who chose these headlines. It is intentional.
And it is also clearly a lie.
Have you seen the media claim Israel is planning to build concentration camps in Gaza?
Here’s what you need to know. pic.twitter.com/fuTyx2VW2G
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 9, 2025
The claim that Israel is planning “internment camps” or “ghettos” is not grounded in fact. It stems from a statement by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said he had instructed the IDF to prepare a plan to establish a “humanitarian city” in the southern Gaza Strip.
At no point — in English or Hebrew — did Katz use the word “camp,” nor did he imply mass internment or forced confinement.
According to Katz, the plan involves relocating approximately 600,000 Palestinians, primarily from the al-Muwasi area, into a new protected zone where humanitarian aid could be safely delivered. Individuals would undergo security screening to prevent Hamas terrorists from embedding themselves among civilians.
Even Haaretz, hardly a defender of the Israeli government, reported that the plan is unlikely to move forward due to concerns over its feasibility. There is no finalized proposal. No construction has begun. No orders have been given. It remains a theoretical contingency in a war where Hamas deliberately uses civilians as shields, and aid delivery is perilously complicated.
Worse still, Reuters, which initially reported on the plan using documents allegedly created by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and presented to the US embassy in Jerusalem, was forced to retract the claim. GHF publicly stated it had never authored the documents nor discussed them with any US officials. The “evidence” used to justify these incendiary headlines has collapsed.
So how did a hypothetical “humanitarian city” become an “internment camp” in the eyes of the global press?
The answer lies in a familiar media formula: strip Israeli proposals of all humanitarian intent, apply vocabulary that invokes the Nazi regime (a clear breach of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism), then quote human rights groups to legitimize the distortion. The result is a fabricated atrocity designed to illicit outrage.
Holocaust dog-whistles are not new in this war. But they are especially grotesque when directed at a nation fighting a terrorist group with actual genocidal intent. Hamas has openly declared its goal to annihilate Israel. And on October 7, 2023, it gave the world a glimpse of what that looks like when its fighters raped, mutilated, and murdered Israeli civilians in their homes.
Finally, Gaza — any part of it — is not a concentration camp. According to a report published Tuesday by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 100,000 Palestinians have left Gaza since the start of the war. Whatever else one might argue, the idea that civilians are being herded into camps and forcibly confined simply does not hold up.
The media’s casual flirtation with Holocaust inversion is not just offensive. It is factually wrong and morally repugnant. And in an era of rising global antisemitism, it must be called out for what it is — incitement against Jews.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media’s Grotesque Holocaust Dog Whistle: ‘Internment Camp’ Lie Built on Retracted Reuters Claim first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.