Comment on this storyComment
JERUSALEM – Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and demand for the evacuation of more than 1.1 million civilians ahead of an expected ground invasion could amount to a forcible relocation of civilians – a violation of international law, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday.
The announcement came as President Biden was scheduled to visit Israel on Wednesday to show his support for President Benjamin Netanyahu’s government during the country’s worst crisis in decades. Israel is a nation reeling from an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on dozens of border communities that left at least 1,400 people dead and more than 200 returned to Gaza as hostages – there are now few citizens who are not at least know a person’s life was destroyed that day.
In response, the Israeli government has throttled Gaza, a 25-mile-long enclave where two million people live under Hamas control, cutting it off from aid supplies while heavy airstrikes and a threatened ground offensive aim to undermine Hamas rule in the area to finally end the area. On Tuesday, Palestinian officials estimated the death toll at 2,778. Nearly 10,000 people have been injured and the health system is on the verge of collapse as dwindling fuel supplies threaten total failure.
Ahead of its planned offensive, Israel warned residents of the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and travel south, saying fighting there would intensify in the coming days against Hamas militants, who have built an extensive network of tunnels under civilian homes.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman in Geneva, said Israel had a duty “as an occupying power” to ensure evacuees had access to food, clean water and other basic needs – a reality made impossible by the closure of the territory’s border crossings. and the extent of ongoing fighting.
Aid convoys wait at the entrance to Rafah on the Egyptian border with Gaza, but days of negotiations with Israel over entry remained unsuccessful.
“It appears that Israel has made no attempt to ensure this for the 1.1 million civilians who have been asked to relocate,” Shamdasani said. “We fear that this order, coupled with the imposition of a ‘full siege’ of Gaza, may not be viewed as a lawful temporary evacuation and therefore amounts to a forcible relocation of civilians – in violation of international law.”
The term “forced relocation” describes the forced relocation of civilian populations, a crime against humanity punished by the International Criminal Court. During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s tour of the region this week, several Arab leaders expressed concern about the possible permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza.
At a briefing early Tuesday, a reporter asked Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an IDF spokesman, what the army would do if Hamas fighters posed as civilians to evacuate south ahead of the expected Israeli ground attack.
“We will not target civilians. That’s the only clear thing I can say,” he said. “I think the more time passes, the more people understand that this is the best option if they want to maintain their security,” he added, accusing Hamas of preventing civilians from evacuating and treating them as “human “Use protective shields”.
Hamas has dismissed the Israeli order as a “psychological war,” instead telling citizens to stay put.
Conricus also said that Israel had evacuated its own citizens from 20 communities in northern Israel “to keep civilians away from the battlefield.” There were several small exchanges of fire on the Lebanese border, raising fears that the fighting would spread. On Tuesday, the IDF reported that three soldiers and one civilian were injured by anti-tank missiles fired across the border.
Blinken shuttled between Israel and major Middle East capitals this week, trying to negotiate a pause in fighting that would allow foreign nationals to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing and let in urgently needed humanitarian aid.
Hundreds of people gathered on the Palestinian side of the border crossing on Monday only to find hopes of a brief opening there dashed for the second time in three days.
Shamdasani said the United Nations had also received “horrific reports” that civilians trying to relocate to the southern Gaza Strip were hit and killed by an explosive device, and called for a thorough, independent investigation into the incident.
U.S. officials waited to announce Biden’s trip to Israel until they received commitments from Netanyahu on a humanitarian package on Monday evening, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. No further details were disclosed.
During a seven-and-a-half-hour meeting, Israeli and U.S. officials set up separate rooms and exchanged papers between the two sides negotiating humanitarian issues, including the delivery of aid to Gaza and the creation of safe zones for Palestinian civilians, a State Department official said .
The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that its warplanes had attacked operational command centers, military infrastructure housing operatives and hideouts of the Hamas terrorist organization in Zeitoun and Jabalya in the north of the Gaza Strip, as well as in northern Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, and that it continued ” terrorist targets – many of them outside the northern Gaza Strip.
“I have experienced many wars, but nothing like this,” said Islam Dhair, a father of four who lives in Rafah. He said thousands of people from other parts of Gaza had flocked to his neighborhood and water and food were running out.
Dhair said he knows many people hope to leave when the border crossing with Egypt opens, but he insists he will stay because he fears those who flee will never be able to return.
“We fear that if we leave, Gaza will no longer exist,” he said. Other families who have remained in northern areas have expressed similar fears that they would lose everything if they left their homes.
With the war now in its second week, the scale of the Israeli bombardment against Hamas is overwhelming rescue workers, hospitals and morgues in Gaza.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City had to start burying unclaimed bodies in a mass grave this week. Doctors there said some of the bodies were not picked up because their entire family was killed in airstrikes and there was no one left to identify them. Civil defense members say they are so overloaded that they can often only work at a site long enough to rescue the injured.
“At first we spent more time [at each site] But at the moment it is impossible,” said Mahmood Bassal, Gaza Civil Defense spokesman. He said teams were on site all day responding to calls for help, often only leaving a site when a call came in about another strike.
Heavy equipment such as earthmoving equipment is also in short supply, so emergency crews often have to dig through demolished buildings by hand, he said.
Hudson reported from Amman, Jordan. Kelly Kasulis Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.