2023-10-13 08:53:00
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The Israeli army’s order urging the population of northern Gaza and Gaza City to “evacuate” the territory and move to the south of the Strip cannot be considered a valid warning and could amount to a forced displacement of the civilian population , which constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law, said Amnesty International.
The initial announcement gave the population 24 hours to leave northern Gaza “for their safety and protection”, an impossible demand that even the Israeli army spokesman has admitted cannot be carried out in a single day. Beyond the deadline, Israel cannot treat northern Gaza as an open fire zone simply because it issued this order. Its forces are required to take all possible precautions to minimize harm to civilians anywhere in Gaza.
“With this order, Israeli forces carry out the massive forced displacement of more than 1.1 million people from Gaza City and the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip. They have spread panic among the population and left thousands of internally displaced Palestinians sleeping on the streets, not knowing where to flee or shelter amid the relentless Israeli bombing campaign and ruthless collective punishment measures. The order must be annulled immediately,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
Since October 7, more than 1,500 people have been killed and more than 6,600 injured by Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The actual death toll is expected to be much higher as families struggle to recover the bodies of their loved ones from under the rubble. The attacks came in retaliation for a chilling attack in which Hamas and other armed groups launched indiscriminate rockets, kidnapped civilians, took hostages and carried out mass summary executions of civilians in southern Israel. According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, at least 1,200 people were killed and another 3,436 were injured.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, since the attacks began, of the 2.2 million residents in Gaza, more than 532,000 Palestinians have already been internally displaced, some of them twice.
“Israel’s allies and donor states must urgently call for international humanitarian law to be respected and civilians to be protected. Gaza civilians must not be used as political pawns and their lives cannot be devalued. The international community must also refrain from continuing to legitimize the illegal blockade that Israel has maintained for 16 years and immediately put an end to the transfer of weapons that could be used to commit illegitimate attacks,” said Agnès Callamard.
Israeli airstrikes have caused extensive damage to roads in northern Gaza, public transport is not available and fuel is in short supply due to the tightening of the existing blockade.
One resident described the scenes of chaos and panic seen as people tried to flee through the destroyed streets of northern Gaza: “A one-hour drive seemed to take 30 years. We had to change route many times… Everyone fears for their lives, it is an unimaginable terror. There are boys and girls crying, in panic.”
An aid worker in Gaza told Amnesty International: “Please explain to me [las fuerzas armadas israelíes] how we can evacuate hospitals with patients in intensive care and all the people injured in the latest attacks. “It’s nonsense, impossible.”
Due to the destruction of roads and a lack of fuel, rescue teams are unable to access areas of northern Gaza to unearth the hundreds of bodies that remain trapped under rubble as a result of recent airstrikes.
“We are trying to recover the bodies, what remains of them, of the boys and girls, with our own hands. Excavators cannot reach the area to remove the debris. I have been here for three days since the bombing, 19 members of my family have died and I have only been able to recover the body of my daughter-in-law and a shoulder of my son,” Fawzi Naffar, survivor of an Israeli air strike against the neighborhood, told Amnesty International. of Sheikh Radwan, in Gaza City, which caused the death of at least 40 civilians.
The organization has already documented that several families fled their homes to areas they thought would be safer, but which ended up being bombed. The organization spoke to a man who had fled Beit Hanoun on foot with his family at dawn on October 8 to seek refuge at a school run by the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Jabalia. Shortly after, his 19-year-old son lost his life in an attack in the Jabalia market when she was preparing to buy bread for the family.
Among the displaced people, there are some with disabilities and chronic illnesses. The organization spoke to women and girls with disabilities who had fled their homes on foot and walked for hours in constant fear of shelling to take refuge in UNRWA-run schools in northern Gaza. They cannot make the long journey on foot to southern Gaza, where many of the shelters have already reached capacity. Protecting these civilians must be a priority.
The fear of a “second Nakba”
The majority of Gaza’s population is descended from refugees who were displaced or forced to flee their homes during the 1947-49 conflict, which forcibly displaced more than 750,000 Palestinians from their cities and towns. The Palestinian population refers to this conflict as “the Nakba.”
While many Palestinians are trying to flee northern Gaza, others have told Amnesty International that they prefer to stay for fear of a “second Nakba”, as the generational trauma of displacement remains present in the collective memory of many Gazans. .
“In 1948, during the Nakba, our parents were expelled from their home. We were left without a house, they destroyed it in the August 2022 offensive; “We rebuilt it and they demolished it again… In our entire lives we have known nothing but one displacement after another,” Munir Radwan, a university professor, told Amnesty.
Another person living in Gaza states: “We went to sleep in 2023 and woke up in 1948.”
“The international community cannot remain silent as Israeli forces unlawfully expel more than a million Palestinians from their homes. “The forced displacement imposed by Israel on the civilian population of Gaza must be stopped immediately,” said Agnès Callamard.
Amnesty International calls on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians. Palestinian armed groups must immediately release all civilian hostages and refrain from launching indiscriminate rockets into Israel. For its part, Israel must abide by the principles of international law – especially the principles of proportionality and distinction – and not impose collective punishment, reprisals or displacement.
Amnesty International is an impartial human rights organization and aims to ensure that all parties to an armed conflict respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Amnesty International will continue to investigate whether Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces comply with the standards of international humanitarian law, such as taking all necessary precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects, and refraining from unlawful attacks and collective punishments to the civilian population.
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