The consequences of Israel’s latest forced displacement campaign,masked as “evacuation orders”, in the Gaza Strip—along with its renewed ground assaults and ongoing intense aerial bombardments—are already catastrophic. This situation will undoubtedly compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee once more, forcing them to face homelessness yet again if the international community allows Israeli occupation forces toravage most homes, shelters, and structures in the area.
The Euro-Med Monitor field team observed Israeli occupation forces advancing on foot into western Beit Lahia on the evening of Thursday 20 March, accompanied by heavy artillery shelling and airstrikes during the night. This resulted in the forced relocation of thousands of people who were living in tents and run-down houses to areas devoid of the most basic necessities of life, where they were further bombarded and had no protection.
The Israeli occupation army also increased its violations in other regions of the Gaza Strip. In the last several hours, as of the time of publication, ithas conducted ground incursions into two areas of Rafah outside the “buffer zone” where its troops are positioned along the Egyptian border.Additionally, it has persisted in enforcing unlawful evacuation orders to drive out inhabitants of the northern Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanoun and towns east of Khan Yunis.
Due to a lack of transportation options, thousands of people in these areas were forced to leave their possessions behind and flee. After creating shabby, temporary shelters close to their destroyed homes over the 61 days following the ceasefire implemented on 19 January, they have once again been forced to experience the agony of being displaced somewhere new without shelter.
Israel began its most recent violent bombing campaign on Tuesday morning with the apparent intent to target population centres, shelters, displaced people’s tents, and inhabited homes,without any military justification or necessity. Its illegal ground incursions and evacuation orders have occurred at the same time as this campaign. Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip for nearly 18 months now, and its latest crimes are part of asystematic policy designed to impose harsh living conditions on the Strip’s residents that will ultimately result in their total annihilation.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on Tuesday that he had directed the army to seize new areas of the Gaza Strip and evacuate residents southward, intensify air, sea, and land bombardments, and employ all available military and civil pressure methods, including carrying out President Trump’s plan to expel the Strip’s population.
“Take the advice of the President of the United States,” Katz said in a “final warning” last Wednesday. “Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you—including the possibility of leaving for other places in the world for those who want to.”
Israel’s policies of starvation, mass destruction, and ongoing terror alone have unveiled a comprehensive plan to rid the enclave of its Palestinian population by driving Palestinians from their land through bombardment, deprivationof the basic necessities needed for survival, andthe blocking of aid that has resulted in a lack of means of subsistence. Katz’s public remarks, however, unequivocally demonstrate Israel’s declared intent to forcibly uproot Palestinians as part of its 17-month-long genocide.
These remarks are not just threats; rather, they represent a reality that is being experienced on the ground as a result of widespread killings and the imposition of intolerable living conditions. The United States offers financial and military support for the continuation of Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip, obstructs any international efforts to hold Israel accountable, and intervenes to prevent the issuance or implementation of United Nations resolutions that might curb these violations, providing political and military cover for these killings. As a result, the US is not only a collaborator, but is also a key player in Israel’s ongoing crime of genocide.
The most recent field reports state that in less than 72 hours, Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have killed 591 Palestinians, including 120 women and more than 220 children, and injured over a thousand more people, some of whom arecurrently in critical condition.
The international community’s silence has allowed Israel to carry out its crimes, including killing and injuring people and attacking the headquarters ofinternational organisations and the UN within the Gaza Strip, without any deterrent. This is a serious breach of international law that was implemented to give UN headquarters and UNemployees extra protection—which is a crime in and of itself that needs to be taken seriously, and for which prompt punishment is necessary.
UN employee Marin Marinov was killed and five other foreign nationals were seriously injured in Israel’s bombing of the United Nations Office for Project Services staff residence in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, last Wednesday. Two of the victims were participants in the UN 2720 mechanism for Gaza, and three supported the UN Mine Action Service programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Notably, this was the second attack on the headquarters in just 12 hours; it had been hit by Israeli shelling the night before, with one shell striking the building’s roof in an attack that left no casualties.
Despite the obvious Israeli targeting and the type of shrapnel discovered at the headquarters, which experts for CNN determined were consistent with an Israeli M339 120mm tank shell, Israel’s denial of responsibility for this crime is just another example of its strategy of falsifying information in order to maintain impunity.
Israel’s refusal to take responsibility for this crime is not just dishonesty; rather, it is a calculated strategy that reflects its conviction that it can control the facts and avoid accountability without facing repercussions. Israel relies on its unrestricted political and diplomatic protection to carry out its violations in the absence of any meaningful investigations or true international accountability.
Israel continues not only to commit crimes but also to push the envelope, breaking every rule of international law because it knows that every transgression that goes unpunished opens the door for even more heinous acts. In the face of an international system that consistently fails to deter Israel and its allies in any way, the most horrific crimes and legal infractions have become routine and obvious, respectively.
In addition to being a disgraceful failure, the international community’s silence regarding Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip over the past nearly 18 months effectively gives Israel permission to commit further acts of genocide by resuming the mass killing of Palestinians. The systematic destruction of Palestinians’ means of subsistence is an obvious attempt to eradicate them entirely.
The systematic pattern of mass murder, continuous forced starvation, wilful deprivation of basic survival necessities, and the complete destruction of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip cannot be justified under any circumstances, regardless of the pretexts Israel may use. The core of Israel’s genocide in the Strip is the systematic policy to destroy Palestinian society and prevent it from existing as a viable entity, which is what these acts comprise—they are not isolated crimes.
Any attempt by Israel or its allies to disguise these crimes as security concerns or military requirements is nothing more than flagrant deception to hide the crime of genocide. Moreover, since these actions are being carried out with the obvious intent to exterminate the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, these justifications do not alter the legal reality. The international community should not engage in any way with these excuses, and must act immediately to hold those responsible accountable and stop this genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip from continuing.
All states, both individually and collectively, should take up their legal obligations and act immediately to halt the genocide in the Strip by all means possible. In order to protect Palestinian civilians there, the international community must take all necessary steps to force Israel to lift the blockade completely and immediately, permit unrestricted movement of people and goods, open all crossings without arbitrary conditions, and take effective measures to protect Palestinians from forced displacement and slow killing. This includes launching an urgent response to appropriately meet the population’s immediate needs, including by providing adequate temporary housing.
Israel’s persistent and grave transgressions of international law necessitate the imposition of economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions by the international community. The financial assets of officials implicated in crimes against Palestinians must be frozen, military cooperationsuspended, and arms exports to Israel prohibited. Additionally, trade privileges and bilateral agreements that benefit Israel’s economy should be suspended in order to pressure Israel to stop its crimes against Palestinians.
States that aid Israel in committing these crimes, including the United States and other nations that give Israel support or assistance in any way, including aid and contractual relationships with itsmilitary, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other areas that help its crimes continue, should be held accountable.
Arrest warrants and investigations by the International Criminal Court into Israeli officials involved in international crimes in the Gaza Strip must be expedited. To prevent Israeli officials from acting without consequence, Member States of the Rome Statute are required to cooperate fully with the Court and ensure that these arrest warrants are carried out.
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