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UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese attends a press conference at the Italian Chamber of Deputies in Rome, Italy, on July 29, 2025. [Riccardo De Luca – Anadolu Agency]
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza City aims to render the area uninhabitable as part of a broader plan of ethnic cleansing, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese warned Monday, Anadolu reports.
Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, Albanese said Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s largest urban center amounts to “full destruction.”
“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians but also endanger the remaining Israeli hostages,” she said.
Albanese said the attack on Gaza City is already displacing hundreds of thousands. “Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons… trying to forcibly evacuate the 800,000 Palestinians who were seeking refuge there. Why? Because this is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land. And then probably they will move to the West Bank,” she said.
She stressed the offensive is not about securing territory but about erasing its viability for residents. “It’s happening already. It’s not that this is a future and uncertain event … destroying entire neighborhoods, remnants of buildings where people were seeking shelter,” she said.
Calling the operation “unlawful,” the rapporteur said Israel has no legal grounds to continue its military presence in Gaza. She cited the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion requiring Israel to dismantle settlements, withdraw troops, stop exploiting Palestinian resources, pay reparations, and facilitate the return of displaced Palestinians.
Albanese warned that some states are attempting to shift focus away from these legal obligations, without specifying which countries.
The Israeli army has continued a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 65,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.
Palestinians flee with their belongings amid Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood on August 12, 2025. (Photo by Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip,” said Oxfam International.
Israel’s US-backed campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza City has left nearly 1 million people—half of them starved by design—with nowhere to seek refuge, United Nations agencies and other humanitarian groups warned Wednesday.
“We are witnessing a dangerous escalation in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have stepped up their operations and ordered everyone to move south. This comes two weeks after famine was confirmed in the city and surrounding areas,” said the UN Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), a strategic forum of UN agency heads and over 200 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
“While Israeli authorities have unilaterally declared an area in the south as ‘humanitarian,’ it has not taken effective steps to ensure the safety of those forced to move there and neither the size nor scale of services provided is fit to support those already there, let alone new arrivals,” HCT continued.
“Nearly 1 million people are now left with no safe or viable options—neither the north nor the south offers safety,” HCT added.
With no safe place left in #Gaza, UN and NGOs call for a ceasefire and protection from forced displacement.
One elderly woman caring for an injured 8-year-old girl who is one of tens of thousands of children orphaned by Israeli attacks toldAmnesty International Wednesday that “she’s all that I have left, and I have tried everything I can to protect her.”
“We have been displaced twice just in the last week,” the woman added. “We don’t have the means to go to the south, and we are tired of being forced to relive this ordeal all over again.”
An elderly disabled woman living in a makeshift refugee camp in southern Gaza City told Amnesty that “we were displaced from Sheikh Radwan three weeks ago; my son had to carry me on his shoulders because I have no wheelchair and no transportation could reach our area.”
“Now we are ordered to evacuate again. Where do we go?” she asked. “To secure transportation to the south, you have to pay close to 4,000 shekels ($1,200) and to buy a tent, you have to pay at least 3,000 shekels and we don’t know if we’ll find any land to pitch our tent on.”
“We had already spent all our savings to survive this war, looking for food and basics,” the woman added. “Every day is like the war is starting all over again, only far worse, but we are totally depleted, we have no will or strength to carry on.”
Photos showing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including some with donkey-drawn carts—slowly streaming southward from Gaza City evoked images from the Nakba, when more than 750,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Palestine by Zionist terror militias during the establishment of modern Israel.
More than 200,000 Palestinians displaced from Gaza City amid escalating Israeli air strikes and humanitarian crises in besieged areas — in pictures https://t.co/uH1p22Ln61pic.twitter.com/PMcmVIBHs8
The World Health Organization (WHO), a UN body, warned Wednesday that “starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at the highest levels ever since the conflict began almost two years ago,” and that “deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.”
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution, and death,” the agency added. “Another 1.07 million people (54%) are in ‘emergency’ (IPC Phase 4), and 396,000 people (20%) are in ‘crisis’ (IPC Phase 3).”
WHO also cited overall casualties in Gaza—now approaching at least 65,000 deaths, mostly women and children—and 164,000 injuries, according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM)—and noted that “as of September 5, 2025, there have been 2,339 reported fatalities among aid-seekers near militarized distribution sites and along convoy routes since May 27.”
Oxfam International—a coalition of over 20 independent NGOs focused on alleviating poverty—echoed the UN experts, asserting that “Israel’s intent to displace around 1 million civilians, half of whom are living in famine, is impossible and illegal.”
“Displacement orders, on leaflets thrown from the sky, or posted on social media, signal grave next steps, a scene all too familiar in Gaza where every order has preceded new waves of destruction and mass casualties,” Oxfam said. “This is the latest chapter in the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza and part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing engulfing the entire Gaza Strip, where nothing and no one has been spared.”
Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said Wednesday that Israel’s mass displacement order for Gaza City residents “is cruel, unlawful, and further compounds the genocidal conditions of life that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians.”
“Gaza City… is now facing complete obliteration,” Morayef added. “It is evident that Israel is determined in pursuing its goal to physically destroy Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It is unconscionable that states with leverage over Israel continue to provide it with arms and diplomatic support to destroy Palestinian lives.”
Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2—Israel’s plan to ”conquer, cleanse, and stay” in Gaza and “annihilate everything” there—as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently put it—has ramped up in recent days, with intensified Israeli air and artillery strikes and ground troops pushing deeper into Gaza City.
According to GHM, at least 72 Palestinians were killed and a minimum of 356 others were wounded by Israeli forces across Gaza on Thursday, including children and infants. At least 53 of the victims were killed in Gaza City. Israeli strikes reportedly targeted homes, tents housing refugees, and aid distribution points.
Additionally, GHM said that seven Palestinians including a child died from starvation over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of famine-related deaths in Gaza to at least 411, 142 of them children.
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Palestinians gather at an aid distribution point set up by the privately-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 25, 2025. [Eyad BABA / AFP /Getty Images]
A group of senior Democratic senators in the US has issued a scathing letter calling on the Trump administration to immediately halt funding to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial private organisation accused of complicity in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians near its aid distribution sites.
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Welch, joined by 19 others, urged the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought to cut financial support to GHF and redirect funds to established humanitarian mechanisms. “We urge you to immediately cease all US funding for GHF and resume support for the existing UN-led aid coordination mechanisms,” the senators wrote.
The letter, shared with The Guardian and published on Van Hollen’s website, sharply criticises the administration’s handling of the GHF programme, alleging that funding was approved despite serious internal warnings from USAID officials. The agency flagged “operational and reputational risks and lack of oversight,” noting that the group’s risk management plan failed to provide assurances that aid would reach civilians in need.
GHF began distributing aid in Gaza in late May after the Israeli government approved limited entry of food and supplies through only four militarised sites in the south. The system replaced a UN-led aid network that previously operated over 400 distribution points across the Strip. The shift is believed to have been designed to displace Palestinians and fragment the aid ecosystem in favour of Israeli-coordinated alternatives with the final aim of ethnically cleansing Gaza.
Since GHF began operations, thousands of Palestinians have been killed while attempting to access food near its sites, according to UN data. Witnesses report civilians being fired on by Israeli tanks, drones and soldiers. “Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarised zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people,” warned UN Secretary-General António Guterres in late June.
The senators’ letter raises serious concerns that GHF is not a neutral humanitarian actor. The organisation is reported to work in close coordination with the Israeli military and uses American private military contractors, including Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, to secure its aid convoys. These contractors have been documented using live ammunition and stun grenades during aid distributions.
GHF’s first executive director, Jake Wood, resigned prior to its operational launch, stating the plan could not be implemented without abandoning fundamental humanitarian principles. The senators noted that GHF’s system, by forcing Palestinians to travel long distances to receive food, risks facilitating forced displacement.
Despite the mounting evidence of war crimes, the State Department proceeded with a $30 million grant to GHF in June. This was done under a “priority directive” from the White House, bypassing standard audits, Congressional consultation and legally mandated vetting procedures meant to prevent aid from reaching designated terrorist organisations. The grant was also exempted from third-party monitoring.
Further controversy surrounds GHF’s reported involvement in a proposal dubbed the “Gaza Riviera,” a 38-page development plan for large-scale camps, which critics argue would legitimise Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign by resettling Palestinians outside of Gaza.
The senators also demanded full transparency from the administration of President Donald Trump, calling for the release of GHF’s funding documents, award contracts, and any export licences for military services. They questioned whether US nationals employed by GHF-linked contractors had engaged in hostilities in Gaza, and if the administration had licensed the export of firearms to these firms.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
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Jewish settlers, under the protection of Israeli forces, seize a house belonging to the Nasir al-Din family in the Old City of Hebron, West Bank on September 02, 2025. [Amer Shallodi – Anadolu Agency]
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned Thursday that Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are facing mass forced displacement at the hands of the Israeli occupation army and illegal settlers, amounting to an imminent risk of ethnic cleansing.
In its statement, MSF stressed that Israel’s annexation-driven policies in the occupied West Bank represent grave breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law.
According to the organisation, in 2025 MSF teams witnessed policies and practices that are “blatantly designed to remove Palestinians from their land and prevent any possibility of return.”
MSF concluded that “ending the occupation remains the only way to alleviate the severe suffering facing Palestinians.” The group urged the United States, European Union member states, and the wider international community to apply real pressure to halt Israel’s practices of displacement and ensure an end to its illegal occupation.
The warning came a day after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that Tel Aviv intends to annex 82 per cent of the occupied West Bank under Israeli sovereignty in order to block the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In preparation for annexation, Israel has intensified its crimes in the West Bank since launching its genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip in October 2023. These crimes include home demolitions, mass displacement of Palestinian civilians, widespread land confiscation, and the accelerated expansion of illegal settlements.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
The GREAT scheme envisages a bustling port city bisected by a watercourse bordered by up to eight AI -powered high-tech megacities. Photograph: Supplied
Prospectus proposes forced displacement of entire population and puts territory into US trusteeship
A plan circulating in the White House to develop the “Gaza Riviera” as a string of high-tech megacities has been dismissed as an “insane” attempt to provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory’s population.
On Sunday the Washington Post published a leaked prospectus for the plan, which would involve the forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population of 2 million people and put the territory into a US trusteeship for at least a decade.
Named the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust – or Great – the proposal was reportedly developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation with financial planning contributed by Boston Consulting Group.
Image from the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust – or Great – proposal. Photograph: Supplied
Most controversially, the 38-page plan suggests what it calls “temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population” – a proposal that would amount to ethnic cleansing, potentially a genocidal act.
Palestinians would be encouraged into “voluntary” departure to another country or into restricted, secure zones during reconstruction. Those who own land would be offered “a digital token” by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
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