Israel accused of crimes against humanity over forced displacement in Gaza
The scene of the strike in Jabalya, northern Gaza, on 10 November 2024
Peter Beaumont reports in The Guardian on 14 November 2024:
Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.
The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population]”, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court”.
The report was published amid mounting evidence that Israel is accelerating its efforts to cut the Gaza Strip in two with a buffer zone and is building new infrastructure to support a prolonged military presence, with an increased pace of demolitions and destruction.
Residents in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were besieging displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp from Gaza City.
Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.
Calling for Israel’s policy of forced displacement to be investigated by the international criminal court, Human Rights Watch also urged targeted sanctions against Israel including the cessation of arms sales.
The report by the prominent international rights group, titled ‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, takes aim at one of Israel’s most controversial policies: the use of evacuation orders, which have driven mass displacement inside Gaza, with many people being displaced on multiple occasions.