Reuters has corrected an article on Monday claiming the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) submitted a proposal to put Palestinians in camps while the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip was dismantled.
“CORRECTION: A proposal seen by Reuters and bearing the name of a controversial US-backed aid group described a plan to build camps inside – and possibly outside – Gaza, outlining a vision of ‘replacing Hamas’ control over the population in Gaza,’” the wire service stated.
“We deleted an earlier post to clarify it could not be determined who created or submitted the document,” the statement continued.
The story, initially titled “Exclusive: US-backed aid group proposed ‘Humanitarian Transit Areas’ (HTAs) for Palestinians in Gaza,” claimed GHF proposed a $2 billion plan to construct “‘large-scale’ and ‘voluntary’ camps where the Gazan population could ‘temporarily reside, deradicalize, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so’.”
The amended story still claims that the document includes the GHF name on the cover and that of SRS, a for-profit contracting company that works with GHF, on several slides, and that it was submitted to the US embassy in Jerusalem and the Trump administration, “according to sources”.
Reuters reported that, while the US State Department declined to comment on the supposed proposal, a senior administration official said: “Nothing of the like is under consideration.”
GHF, meanwhile, has rubbished the report, saying: “Another day, another false headline.
"Reuters referenced a so-called ‘GHF presentation’ that we’ve never seen, never created and had no part in.”
Moreover, the organisation claimed that it had informed the outlet that its report was factually incorrect before publication, but that it went out anyway.
“We told them clearly: GHF has no involvement in HTAs, no plans for HTAs and this presentation is NOT ours,” the foundation stated. “They ran the story anyway.”
“This isn’t journalism,” GHF continued. “It’s agenda-driven clickbait, propped up by bad-faith sources and designed to stir controversy, not uncover truth.”
However, the plan outlined in the Reuters report does bear some similarities to the one announced by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz overnight, which would see Gaza’s entire civilian population confined to a new “humanitarian city” in Rafah.
The new camp would be built on the ruins of the city in the south of the Strip, with Gazans screened through security checks before being allowed to enter.
However, Katz confirmed that, once settled in the area, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave.
He also said that, once Gazans had relocated, they would be encouraged to “voluntarily emigrate” to third countries.
The plan has already received significant criticism, with Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, claiming that it amounted to “an operation plan for a crime against humanity”.
“While the government still calls the deportation ‘voluntary’, people in Gaza are under so many coercive measures that no departure from the strip can be seen in legal terms as consensual,” he said.
