Article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled.”
Israel’s expanding military occupation of Gaza is accelerating the forced displacement of Palestinians, with the United Nations human rights office warning Friday that an already catastrophic humanitarian situation is further deteriorating as Israeli forces seize more territory and squeeze Gaza’s population into an ever-shrinking area.
“Concerns of ethnic cleansing in Gaza endure as Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into an ever-smaller fraction of the territory, causing recurrent displacement while destroying the remaining civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites,” the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a new report.
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The publication details the displacement crisis as a worsening “nightmare,” documenting how Israel’s expanding control, military operations, and restrictions on Palestinian movement are undermining any prospect of a return home for hundreds of thousands of people uprooted during the genocidal assault on the territory, now in its fourth year.
“Palestinians in Gaza are surrounded by Israeli forces from all sides that continue to push them inwards with the stated aim of increasing the Israeli military deployment area to 70% of Gaza’s territory,” the report continues.
“The relentless contraction of space available to civilians comes with new displacement drivers in areas adjacent to Israeli forces’ deployment lines, commonly known as the ‘yellow line,’” OHCHR added.
According to OHCHR:
Over the past two weeks, the UN Human Rights Office… has documented the westward expansion of Israeli military deployment areas triggering new displacement of Palestinians in Al-Shujaiyeh, Gaza City, and in eastern Al-Bureij, eastern Deir-al-Balah, and eastern Al-Maghazi, Middle Gaza. In Al-Shujaiyeh, Israeli forces’ westward push came with at least two Israeli attacks reported on displacement encampments, and detonations of the few buildings left standing in the area, with the reported use of explosive robots.
According to reports… an Israeli drone dropped munitions on tents sheltering displaced families at Al-Shujaiyeh junction near the so-called yellow line on October 25, setting tents on fire… The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza said the fire displaced 200 families comprising 800 people, most of them women, children, and elderly persons.
All told, nearly 2 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced during Israel’s genocidal retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023—most of them multiple times.
“The nightmare of displacement in Gaza is both acute and chronic,” Ajith Sunghay, who heads OHCHR’s Palestine division. “Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled, most of which are inaccessible because they fall beyond the so-called yellow line. And they continue to be displaced again and again.”
That’s apparently Israel’s plan. Israeli authorities have stated that they intend to expand their military deployment to encompass 70% of Gaza’s territory. To keep Gazans from returning home, Israeli forces have apparently been treating the area beyond the yellow line as a “kill zone,” shooting any man, woman, or child who crosses the invisible boundary.
A United Nations-mandated commission of inquiry on Monday issued a report accusing Israel of crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territories—including extermination, rape, and torture—while also affirming that Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza, despite the nominal yearlong ceasefire.
“There must be an end to this suffering,” Sunghay stressed Friday. “This is the fourth year of displacement for most Palestinians in Gaza, the fourth winter in tents too flimsy to withstand the rain, and they are still under fire through it all. Let this be the last.”
Article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
