Gaza Herald — Israeli Military Minister Israel Katz has threatened to forcibly move Gaza City’s roughly one million Palestinians south and destroy large parts of the city if another Israeli soldier or civilian is captured, explicitly linking the fate of an entire civilian population to the actions of Palestinian armed groups.
Speaking on September 22, Katz said Israel had intelligence indicating possible plans to capture Israelis and warned Hamas and its supporters, including Iran and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that any new capture would trigger sweeping consequences for Gaza City.
“If even one Israeli soldier or civilian is kidnapped,” Katz said, Gaza City’s approximately one million residents would be moved south. He threatened to destroy the city’s homes and what he called “terror towers,” saying Gaza City would be dealt with as Rafah and Beit Hanoun were during Gaza genocide.
Katz went further in describing Israel’s approach: evacuating the population, destroying infrastructure and taking territory. He also reiterated that Israeli forces would not withdraw from the so-called Yellow Line as long as Hamas remains armed and its military infrastructure has not been dismantled.
Collective Punishment and Forced Displacement
The threat raises serious concerns because it makes punitive measures against an entire civilian population contingent on the actions of armed groups. International humanitarian law prohibits collective punishment and tightly restricts the forcible transfer or deportation of civilians from occupied territory.
Katz’s remarks also come amid broader Israeli proposals to facilitate Palestinian emigration from Gaza, reinforcing Palestinian fears that temporary wartime displacement could ultimately become permanent.
For Gaza City’s population, the threat is particularly grave because many residents have already endured repeated displacement and have few safe or habitable alternatives. Large parts of the enclave remain devastated, while reconstruction has barely begun and many families continue to live in tents or buildings severely damaged during Israeli attacks.
Gaza’s Ruins Are Still Killing Palestinians
The consequences of that destruction remain visible even when bombs are not falling.
On September 16, a residential building previously damaged by Israeli strikes collapsed in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, killing 21 Palestinians, including 12 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Fourteen others were injured.
Families had continued living inside the damaged building because they had few alternatives for shelter. Rescue crews struggled to reach people beneath the rubble amid shortages of equipment, illustrating how destruction from the war continues to endanger Palestinians long after individual attacks.
The tragedy underscores the reality confronting Gaza City residents threatened with yet another displacement: homes are destroyed or structurally unsafe, reconstruction remains severely constrained, and alternative shelter is scarce.
Reconstruction Tied to Disarmament
Katz’s threats also come as negotiations over Gaza’s future remain tied to demands for Hamas’s disarmament.
US presidential adviser Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in August as Washington sought progress on the next phase of the Gaza agreement. Israel maintained that further military redeployment and reconstruction should not proceed before Hamas is disarmed and its military infrastructure dismantled.
This leaves Gaza’s civilian population caught between unresolved political and military demands and an urgent need to rebuild homes, hospitals and essential infrastructure.
For Palestinians, Katz’s latest threat therefore cannot be viewed simply as political rhetoric. A population already subjected to years of bombardment, displacement and destruction is now being openly warned that approximately one million people could again be driven from their homes in response to an act they neither committed nor controlled.
The threat exposes a broader danger facing Gaza: that mass displacement and territorial destruction are increasingly being articulated not merely as consequences of war, but as instruments of Israeli military policy.
