Israel carrying out war crimes, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, HRW says

Israel's forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Thursday.

The rights group said Israel has displaced around 1.9 million Palestinians - nearly all of the enclave's population - without justification.

HRW's 154-page report examines Israel's "evacuation" system, which it says has been inconsistent and accompanied by the deliberate targeting of civilians.

"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.

"Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas."

The report highlights that the displacement of civilians is permitted "only exceptionally" by international law and requires that Israel — the occupying power — ensure that displaced people can be accommodated.

While forcing Palestinians from their homes, the Israeli army has destroyed key civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, bakeries and water systems.

"The destruction is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people," HRW said.

HRW compared the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to create "buffer zones" and "corridors" to the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 by Zionist militias known as the Nakba, or 'catastrophe'.

Around 80 percent of Gaza's population are themselves refugees from the Nakba, with Israel having for decades refused their right of return.

"Systematically rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable... in some cases permanently... amounts to ethnic cleansing," Ahmed Benchemsi, spokesman for HRW's Middle East division said in a press briefing.

The report, which covers the period up to August 2024, comes amid Israel's renewed siege and assault on northern Gaza, where civilians are being forced to move south.

The assault has seen around 100,000 people forced to move from the north, Palestinian refugee agency spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told AFP.

Aid to the area has been blocked, with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee warning on 8 November that northern Gaza faces a "worst-case scenario" of famine.

"We urge the international community to understand that declaring a famine goes far beyond indicating extreme hunger," said Natalia Anguera, Head of Operations for the Middle East at Action Against Hunger. "It means that lives are already being lost.”

Wounded civilians have also been denied medical evacuation from Gaza, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday. The group said Israel had recently prevented eight children, including a two-year-old with leg amputations, from travelling to Jordan for treatment.

Israel has been accused of implementing the so-called 'General's Plan' in northern Gaza — a strategy that entails forcing civilians out of northern Gaza and considering all who remain as combatants.

Israel has said that it is evacuating civilians due to fighters embedding themselves within civilian areas — a claim that HRW rejected as "largely false".

The rights group urged sanctions and diplomatic pressure on Israel, including through a halt on arms transfers.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 43,712, with a further 103,258 wounded since October 2023.