Israel must stop committing its crime of forced displacement in Gaza
People on foot on the Salah al-Din road on their way to southern Gaza on 5 November 2023
EuroMed Monitor writes on 19 May 2024:
The international community must take swift and serious action to force Israel to stop committing its crime of forced displacement against the people of the Gaza Strip. Israel has forcibly displaced over 1.7 million residents of the Strip in a systematic, widespread, and repetitive manner since the start of its genocidal war on 7 October 2023.
After being forced to travel and shelter south of the Gaza Valley in recent months, thousands of people must be allowed to return to their homes in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates. This is especially important since the Israeli military attack on Rafah has effectively ended the existence of the so-called “safe zone”, which served as a relative haven for those who were forcibly displaced from various parts of the Gaza Strip and had no other place to stay.
Since the Israeli army issued the final orders for forced displacement on 6 May, more than 700,000 people have left Rafah. The forced displacement is still occurring despite extremely difficult circumstances, with families struggling to find tents large enough to house them, arrange for transportation, and pay costs associated with their evacuation.
The orders to leave Rafah come eight months into the genocide, which has destroyed most families’ sources of livelihood and left the majority of them jobless. These families have not only endured repeated forced evacuation and expulsion, but have also lost a great deal of their belongings, including the meagre food supplies they started out with.
Given the numerous Israeli threats to invade the border city, Euro-Med Monitor estimates that roughly 150,000 people were forcibly removed from Rafah in the weeks prior to the official orders of forced evacuation.
Most of these are displaced people who were forcibly evacuated from Gaza City and North Gaza last October after the Israeli army issued widespread orders for forced displacement on 13 October 2023, stating that all residents of the two governorates were subject to the following warning: “Urgent warning to residents of the Gaza Strip: Your presence north of the Gaza Valley puts your lives in danger. Anyone who refuses to flee from the northern part of the Gaza Strip to the southern part of the Gaza Valley might be linked to terrorist groups.”
Over the course of several months, the Israeli forces have taken various measures to forcefully displace more than 900 thousand Palestinians. These measures have included direct evacuation orders and the creation of a coercive environment that has resulted in a mass exodus due to Israel’s violent bombing, intimidation, storming of homes and shelter centres, and its forcing those sheltering inside to leave and travel south. Nearly 400,000 people have remained internally displaced in the Gaza City and North Gaza governorates.