Gaza Herald_ The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor warns that the proposed American plan for the Gaza Strip poses severe and far-reaching dangers, primarily by enforcing new geographic divisions that tighten Israeli military control and create conditions that could push Palestinians toward forced displacement from their homes.
According to the Monitor’s findings, the plan establishes rigid territorial separations and closed “container cities” with ghetto-like characteristics, while effectively enabling Israel to seize Gaza’s coastline and gas resources—actions that threaten Palestinians’ fundamental rights, including their right to self-determination.
The Monitor explains that the plan envisions splitting Gaza into two main areas, green and red, divided by a militarized yellow boundary. This system would transform large sections of the Strip into closed military zones, pressuring residents to leave as movement, humanitarian aid, and daily life become heavily restricted. Information obtained by the Monitor from arrangements coordinated through the U.S. Civil-Military Coordination Center indicates that over half of Gaza’s territory would fall under direct military authority, surrounded by fortified boundaries and extensive surveillance. Humanitarian aid would be used as leverage to push populations into designated “safe zones.”
In its first phase, the plan allocates 47% of Gaza as a populated red zone and 53% as a green zone under full Israeli military dominance, where local armed groups backed by Israel would operate. The yellow boundary between them, already shifted more than 1,000 meters in some areas beyond what appears on maps, serves as a shoot-to-kill zone. This unilateral expansion effectively redraws territorial lines and deepens restrictions on Palestinian movement, further fragmenting the Strip and entrenching de facto annexation.
The Monitor also warns that the plan appears aligned with long-standing Israeli efforts to gain full control of Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline. By classifying the coastal area as a red zone, Israel would gain exclusive access to marine resources, including fishing grounds and natural gas fields. Such exploitation of the resources of an occupied territory violates basic principles of international law and denies Palestinians their sovereign right to manage their natural wealth.
A key component of the plan is the creation of “container cities”, densely packed residential compounds in the green zone designed to hold roughly 25,000 people within one square kilometer. Enclosed by fences and controlled through strict checkpoints, these camps resemble modern versions of historical ghettos, where residents would be confined, heavily monitored, and stripped of freedom of movement. These are not temporary shelters, the Monitor emphasizes, but controlled enclaves where essential needs such as housing, food, employment, education, and healthcare become conditional privileges determined by Israeli and American security standards. Engineering teams have reportedly already begun designing the first such compound in Rafah.
This system would institutionalize discrimination within the Palestinian population, forcing many into these restricted camps based on opaque security classifications. Services and aid would become tools of coercion, creating a controlled population unable to manage its own civil affairs. According to the Monitor, such arrangements ultimately reshape the political and social landscape of Gaza, undermining its identity and future as well as its legitimate claim to self-determination.
The Monitor further stresses that the plan is not merely a set of security measures but part of a larger political strategy engineered to fragment Palestinian unity, deepen the separation between Gaza and the West Bank, and establish a new authority in Gaza detached from the broader Palestinian national framework. This amounts to externally imposed political restructuring that erodes collective rights.
The report criticizes the United States for acting not as a mediator but as an active participant in designing a system that reinforces forced displacement and de facto annexation under the guise of security. Washington’s supervision of the Civil-Military Coordination Center, along with its influence in advancing this plan, contradicts its obligations not to support unlawful practices or benefit from them.
The Monitor urges the international community to recognize that no legitimate arrangement for Gaza can occur without ending the occupation, fully withdrawing military forces, lifting the blockade by land, sea, and air, restoring freedom of movement, and enabling the reconstruction process. Palestinians must be allowed to govern their own civil affairs and democratically choose their representatives. It calls on the United Nations and signatories to the Geneva Conventions to reject any proposal that reproduces Israeli control through fragmented zones, enclaves, or resource exploitation. Immediate international pressure is required to lift the siege, open all crossings, and enforce accountability mechanisms to ensure that violations do not go unpunished.
