Gaza Herald- The Gaza Center for Human Rights has expressed deep concern over reports of a U.S.-backed plan to establish residential compounds for Palestinians inside areas controlled by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. The initiative would reportedly be administered through a civil–military coordination cell led by the U.S. military.
In a statement on Saturday, the center warned that details revealed by The Wall Street Journal point to an emerging American-Israeli approach that links reconstruction and basic rights to political and security conditions, an explicit violation of international humanitarian law, which obliges an occupying power to guarantee the rights of the population without coercion or conditionality.
Concerns Over Forced Demographic Reorganization
According to the center, the alleged plan would place civilians under a joint military administration that could reorganize Gaza’s population demographically. Such measures, it said, would restrict the right to adequate housing, freedom of movement, and the ability to live safely within one’s natural environment. The center added that the initiative also threatens individual and collective rights related to land ownership.
The statement noted that while the proposed project may begin with engineering work to clear rubble and conduct field planning, it appears to extend far beyond that, toward a form of “social engineering” designed to impose new realities on the ground without Palestinian participation or guarantees for the rights of affected communities.
The center criticized the approach as one that reduces civilians to objects of political experimentation, circumventing the international obligation to conduct reconstruction according to the needs and rights of the local population rather than external agendas.
It added that the involvement of military and engineering teams in implementing such a scheme ignores the urgent priority of protecting civilians and restoring the basic rights destroyed during Israel’s military assault on Gaza.
Security Council Vote Raises Further Concerns
The statement pointed to recent unilateral measures it considers harmful to human rights, including the UN Security Council’s vote on Monday, November 17, 2025, in favor of Resolution 2803, legislation that the center said entrenches Israeli occupation and undermines Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
The center argued that the resolution entrenches the use of humanitarian aid as a tool of pressure and control by the prospective new administrative authority (the “Peace Council and International Force”), including its cooperation with parties implicated in acts of genocide, such as the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)” and Israeli-backed armed militias, all coordinated with Israeli occupation forces.
Call to Uphold International Humanitarian Law
The Gaza Center for Human Rights urged international actors to uphold international humanitarian law, which prohibits imposing coercive arrangements on civilian populations, displacing them, or controlling their living choices.
It called for ensuring that any reconstruction process, urban planning initiative, or engineering intervention be rooted in the inalienable rights and needs of the population, with genuine participation from local community institutions and without political or security preconditions.
The center stressed that allowing foreign contractors or international bodies to dominate reconstruction efforts marginalizes Palestinians entirely and excludes them from rebuilding Gaza, a process that, it warned, risks disregarding local priorities and both individual and collective rights.
The center cautioned that imposing foreign administration on Gaza based on vague and undefined criteria would further fragment Palestine and its people by deepening the geographic isolation already imposed on the Strip.
It concluded by urging the international community to prevent the use of humanitarian suffering as a pressure tool to reshape the political reality in ways that undermine the fundamental rights of Gaza’s population.
