The head of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) accuses Israel of preparing to deport residents of the Gaza Strip to neighboring Egypt, which the Israeli authorities deny.
• Also read: The Israeli army enters Khan Younes, a large city in the southern Gaza Strip
Just over two months after Israel declared war on Hamas in response to the Palestinian Islamist movement's bloody attack on October 7, 80% of Gaza's 2.4 million residents have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Israel launched its offensive by first bombing the northern Gaza Strip, from where Hamas commandos had entered its territory, and then gradually expanding its operations to cover the entire territory, moving the population ever further south, toward the Egyptian border , urged.
In a column published by the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini deplored the concentration of displaced civilians in an ever-shrinking area of southern Gaza, which is also the target of attacks.
“The United Nations and several member states, including the United States, have firmly rejected this [l’hypothèse d’un] Forced expulsion of Gazans from the Gaza Strip,” writes Mr. Lazzarini in the American daily.
“But the events we are witnessing show attempts to bring Palestinians to Egypt, whether they stay there or are resettled elsewhere,” he added.
AFP
The shelling of northern Gaza and the flight of its residents south were “the first step in this scenario,” he said. The next step would be to force civilians to leave the large city of Khan Younes in the southern Gaza Strip to gather on the border with Egypt.
“If this path continues and leads to what many are already calling a second Nakba, Gaza will no longer be a land for Palestinians,” warns Mr. Lazzarini.
AFP
Palestinians use “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic) to describe the exodus of about 760,000 Palestinians in 1948 who were forced to flee or driven from their homes by Israel during the war that led to the founding of the state.
Asked about Mr Lazzarini's comments, Cogat, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Ministry's panel responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, told AFP: “There is none, there is none. There has never been and never will be an Israeli plan to relocate residents of the Gaza Strip there.” Egypt. That’s just not true.”
And last week, a government spokesman assured that Israel's only goal was to protect civilians from the fighting, but “within the Gaza Strip.”
The war between Israel and Hamas, which entered its 65th day on Sunday, was sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
According to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Islamist movement, the offensive in the Gaza Strip, launched in retaliation by Israel, left 17,997 dead.