Israeli authorities have systematically forced the mass displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and have carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The report, entitled Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged, says: “There is no plausible military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times.” It says military evacuation orders have caused “grave harm” to more than 90 per cent of the population of Gaza.
Israeli forces had conducted “deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure” where the military had the apparent aim of creating buffer zones and security corridors from which Palestinians were “likely to be permanently displaced”, HRW said, adding that Israel’s actions “do not comply with the rules of war”.
HRW researcher Nadia Hardman said: “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.” She said Israel had prevented Palestinians from returning home by “razing everything in large areas”.
While the laws of war permit civilian displacement “exceptionally, for imperative military reasons and for the population’s security”, HRW dismissed Israeli claims that displacement was necessary because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among civilians.
As an occupying power, Israel was obliged to provide for Palestinians but had “blocked all but a small fraction of the necessary humanitarian aid, water, electricity and fuel from reaching civilians in need”, HRW said.
On the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, HRW warned of Israel’s record. “For almost eight decades, Israeli authorities have denied the right to return of the 80 per cent of the population who are refugees and their descendants who were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel.” HRW was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war which gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their hometowns and villages in what is now Israel. HRW said this uprooting of Palestinians, known as the Nakba, or catastrophe, loomed over Gazans who fear permanent displacement.
It pointed out that early in the current hostilities, senior Israeli government officials and the war cabinet had “declared their intent to displace” Gaza Palestinians and their “land will be handed over to [Israeli] settlers”. HRW quoted Israeli agriculture minister Avi Dichter who said: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”
HRW said the displacement of Palestinians was “likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors”, an action it said would amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
It said Palestinians had lived under an “unlawful blockade for 17 years” and had endured “the continuous crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” while Israel had been protected by a “wall of impunity”.
The Israeli military has denied seeking to create permanent buffer zones and foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that Palestinians displaced from their homes in northern Gaza would be allowed to return at the end of the war. – Additional reporting: Reuters
