Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet is expected to approve a plan to establish concentration camps in Gaza, operated by mercenaries from a private security firm run by former US and Israeli intelligence officials and special forces commanders, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 22 October.
The US security firm, GDC, plans to establish “humanitarian bubbles” in Gaza. The Israeli army will be tasked with “clearing” any such bubble of Hamas fighters and erecting a separation wall around it within 48 hours.
Entry to these compounds will be prohibited except for residents who live in the neighborhood and submit to biometric identification.
Regarding the plan, US journalist Dan Cohen reports that “the Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint US-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubble scape into a high-tech dystopia.”
GDC is headed by Israeli-US businessman Moti Kahane, who worked with Israeli intelligence during the war on Syria to supply extremist so-called rebel groups seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Yedioth Ahronoth reports that GDC has participated in various western-backed wars, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. It is active in about 100 countries and employs more than 14 thousand people.
The company employs former fighters in elite units of the US and British armies, as well as Kurdish fighters. These mercenaries are supposed to secure the humanitarian convoys that will enter each bubble.
The company believes that about 100 mercenaries will be needed to “secure” each neighborhood “bubble.”
GDC will start operating within 30 days from the moment of approval, and the Israeli arm of the company will be entrusted with coordinating the activity with the Israeli army.
Among the Israelis involved in the project are Major General (res.) Doron Avital, Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Koperverser and the former commander of the Navy, David Tzur.
Justin Sapp, a retired US Green Beret Colonel with nearly 30 years of active-duty experience, also helps guide the firm.
Funding to imprison Palestinian residents of Gaza in the concentration camps is expected to come from the US government and donations from abroad.
The plan will first be implemented in northern Gaza, with the intention of expanding it to the Netzarim axis in central Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egypt–Gaza border area.
The plan to establish “humanitarian bubbles” in Gaza comes as Israel’s campaign to exterminate, starve, and ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the north of the strip reaches its 18th day.