Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli authorities have caused the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the NGO Human Rights Watch has said.

The NGO says that there is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times, and that rather than ensuring civilians’ security, military “evacuation orders” have caused grave harm.

In a new 154 report, titled ‘‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,’, Human Rights Watch examines how Israeli authorities’ conduct has led to the displacement of over 90 percent of the population of Gaza—1.9 million Palestinians—and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months.

According to Human Rights Watch, Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating “buffer zones” and security “corridors,” from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced. The NGO says that contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war.

“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, adding: “Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, analysed Israel’s evacuation system, including 184 evacuation orders and satellite imagery confirming the widespread destruction, and verified videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and evacuation routes.

The laws of armed conflict applicable in occupied territory permit displacement of civilians only exceptionally, for imperative military reasons or for the population’s security, and require safeguards and proper accommodation to receive displaced civilians. Israeli officials claim that, because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among the civilian population, the military has lawfully evacuated civilians to attack the groups while limiting civilian harm. Human Rights Watch research shows this claim to be largely false.

There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times, Human Rights Watch found. Israel’s evacuation system has severely harmed the population and often served only to spread fear and anxiety. Rather than ensure security for displaced civilians, Israeli forces have repeatedly struck designated evacuation routes and safe zones.

Human Rights Watch says evacuation orders have been inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations, or at all. The orders did not consider the needs of people with disabilities and others who are unable to leave without assistance.

As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure adequate facilities to accommodate displaced civilians, but the authorities have blocked all but a small fraction of the necessary humanitarian aid, water, electricity, and fuel from reaching civilians in need in Gaza. Israeli attacks have damaged and destroyed resources that people need to stay alive, including hospitals, schools, water and energy infrastructure, bakeries, and agricultural land.

Israel is also obliged to ensure the return of displaced people to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area have ceased. Instead, it has left swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Human Rights Watch says Israel’s military has intentionally demolished or severely damaged civilian infrastructure, including controlled demolitions of homes, with the apparent aim of creating an extended “buffer zone” along Gaza’s perimeter with Israel and a corridor which will bifurcate Gaza. The destruction is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people the NGO claims.

Human Rights Watch says Israel should respect the right of Palestinian civilians to return to the areas in Gaza from which it has displaced them. For almost eight decades, Israeli authorities have denied the right to return of the 80 percent of Gaza’s population who are refugees and their descendants who were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel, in what Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or the catastrophe. This ongoing violation looms over the experience of Palestinians in Gaza, with many of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch speaking of living through a second Nakba.

From the first days of the hostilities, senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet have declared their intent to displace the Palestinian population of Gaza, with government ministers stating that its territory will decrease, that blowing up and flattening Gaza is “beautiful,” and that land will be handed to settlers. In November 2023, Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Avi Dichter said, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

Human Rights Watch found that forced displacement has been widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy.

According to the NGO, Israeli authorities’ organized, violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, who are members of another ethnic group, is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors, and such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing.

Human Rights Watch has said that governments should publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a war crime and crime against humanity, and pressure it to immediately halt those crimes and comply with the International Court of Justice’s multiple binding orders and with the obligations laid out in its July advisory opinion.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israel’s forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has also said.

Alongside this, the NGO is calling on the USA, Germany, and other countries to immediately suspend weapons transfers and military assistance to Israel, arguing that continuing to provide arms to Israel risks complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other grave human rights violations.

“No one can be in denial about the atrocity crimes the Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza,” Hardman said. “Transfer of additional weapons and assistance to Israel by the United States, Germany, and others is a blank check for further atrocities and increasingly puts them at risk of complicity.”

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