CMEP Condemns the Israeli Plan to Forcibly Relocate Palestinians to Camps in Rafah

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) rejects the Israeli government’s revealed plan to forcibly concentrate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into camps built atop the ruins of Rafah. The proposal would confine more than 600,000 displaced Palestinians, without freedom of movement or any viable means of return, into a militarized encampment, with the explicit intention of facilitating their departure from Gaza. Such a policy amounts to the furtherance of ethnic cleansing and represents a grave violation of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition of forced displacement.

The plan itself only exists because the Israeli military has already reduced Rafah, once home to hundreds of thousands of people, to rubble through relentless bombardment and systematic bulldozing. The idea that those who have already endured unspeakable loss and violence should now be herded into camps is morally abhorrent. It is an assault on human dignity, justice, and every international norm meant to protect civilian life during conflict. We utterly reject any further displacement of the Palestinian people. CMEP calls on the global Church, the international community, and especially the U.S. government, whose financial and military support underpins these actions, to speak out and act decisively. The Church cannot remain silent. There must be a concerted campaign to exert diplomatic pressure to put an immediate halt to this plan, robust international accountability, and a recommitment to peace rooted in the rights and dignity of all people in the land.