Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.
The U.S.-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population],” describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court.”
The report was published amid mounting evidence that Israel is accelerating its efforts to cut the Gaza Strip in two with a buffer zone and is building new infrastructure to support a prolonged military presence, with an increased pace of demolitions and destruction.
Residents in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were besieging displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp from Gaza City.
Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.
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