What Trump’s Gaza Plan Means for the World
FP asked 10 writers to respond to the U.S. president’s shock announcement.
By Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, Matthew Duss, Khaled Elgindy, Dalia Hatuqa, Sara Khorshid, Aaron David Miller, Yousef Munayyer, Robert A. Pape, Hala Rharrit, and Dennis Ross
FP Live:
What does the global polarization over the Israel-Hamas war and its causes say about our political discourse? Pankaj Mishra joined FP Live to discuss. Watch this event here.
On the evening of Feb. 4, U.S. President Donald Trump shocked the world—including many lawmakers in his own party—by announcing that the United States will “take over” the Gaza Strip. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out,” he said.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood beside him, Trump went on to promise that Gaza would become “the Riviera of the Middle East” and implied that Egypt and Jordan would eventually agree to take in displaced Palestinians. Netanyahu, visibly pleased, thanked Trump for his “willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas.”
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is a Gazan writer, analyst, and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Matthew Duss is the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy. He served as a foreign-policy advisor to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders from 2017 to 2022. X: @mattduss
Khaled Elgindy is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump. X: @elgindy_
Dalia Hatuqa is a multimedia journalist based in the United States and the West Bank. X: @daliahatuqa
Sara Khorshid is a doctoral candidate at Western University in Canada, where she is writing her dissertation on the history of Egyptians’ postcolonial perceptions of the West as portrayed in Egyptian cinema during the Cold War. She previously worked as a journalist and columnist in Egypt for 15 years. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, HuffPost, Jadaliyya, and numerous other outlets. X: @SaraKhorshid
Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President. X: @aarondmiller2
Yousef Munayyer is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center Washington DC. X: @YousefMunayyer
Robert A. Pape is a professor at the University of Chicago and the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. His publications include Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, and numerous other peer-reviewed articles on terrorism.
Hala Rharrit served as a diplomat for 18 years with the U.S. State Department, before resigning in April 2024 in opposition to the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She is an expert in Middle East and North African affairs and U.S. relations with the region.
Dennis Ross is a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author most recently of Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Lead in a Multipolar World. Ross served in senior national security positions in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations. X: @AmbDennisRoss
“Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged”
Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in GazaAvailable In
Palestinians flee south via Salah al-Din Road, in central Gaza, on the third day of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on November 26, 2023. © 2023 AP Photo/Hatem Moussa
Download the Summary & Recommendations in Arabic
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Summary
November 14, 2024 News Release
Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity in Gaza
The first thing I thought of was the Nakba [“The Catastrophe”] of 1948, I thought [the Israeli authorities] were trying to do this again, to take over our land and our houses again. Once I heard the evacuation order to go south, my first reaction was: I’m not leaving. It is not an option to leave everything I have worked for…but then the bombs started and our houses were being destroyed, I needed to protect my family. This is why I finally left.
― Dr. Hassan, a 49-year-old man who fled with his family from his home near Jabalia in northern Gaza to Khan Younis in the south, November 30, 2023
Dr. Hassan fled from his home in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on October 11, 2023, and fled south where he and 36 other members of his family sought refuge in Khan Younis after the Israeli military instructed people to go there for their safety. He described Israeli bombardments while fleeing along the main artery to the south, the Salah al-Din Road, and Israeli airstrikes when he got to Khan Younis where all the shelters were full, and his family had to separate to find somewhere to sleep. After multiple rounds of displacement Dr. Hassan and his family remain displaced in southern Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza carried out devastating attacks on southern Israel, committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians. Israel responded with a military offensive against Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. This offensive, which includes a massive bombing campaign and ground attacks across Israeli-occupied Gaza, continues to this day. There have been ongoing attacks on military targets, but there have also been significant amounts of unlawful airstrikes and destruction of civilian infrastructure and housing, a tight blockade of Gaza that has led to a humanitarian catastrophe and amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. Since the first days of the offensive, Israel has carried out these acts in conjunction with an evacuation system that has flagrantly failed to keep Palestinians in Gaza safe, and in fact put them in harm’s way. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. As this report will show, Israel’s actions have intentionally caused the mass and forced displacement of the majority of the civilian population of Gaza.
According to the United Nations, 1.9 million people were displaced in Gaza as of October 2024 out of a population of 2.2 million people. This report examines the Israeli authorities’ conduct which has led to this extraordinarily high level of displacement and finds these actions amount to forced displacement. Given the evidence strongly indicates that multiple acts of forced displacement were carried out with intent, it amounts to war crimes. The report further finds that the Israeli government’s acts of forced displacement are widespread and systematic. Statements by senior officials with command responsibility show that forced displacement is intentional and forms part of Israeli state policy and therefore amount to a crime against humanity. Israel’s actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Read a text description of this video
DATE LOCATOR:
Oct, 2023,Gaza
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary
We’ve just been targeted. We’ve just been targeted. We’ve just been targeted by warplanes. We are now with the Red Crescent crews. Thank God for your safety, Firas. Thank you, Firas. No need to worry, we’re okay.
VO:
This is the story of two Palestinian residents, Ghassan and Sara, who sought to escape the violence in Gaza but were trapped in the hostilities and their lives irreversibly changed.
TITLE:
WARNING
This video contains violent images and descriptions
including people injured, and distressing scenes.
Viewer discretion advised.
TITLE:
NOWHERE IS SAFE
TITLE:
GHASSAN
DATE LOCATOR:
Oct, 2023, Gaza
VO:
Since the start of the hostilities, Ghassan has kept a video diary documenting his daily life.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary
Jabalia camp is completely isolated from the world, they cut the internet, they cut everything.
VO:
Israel has enforced a tight blockade of Gaza. This has led to a humanitarian catastrophe. And an evacuation system that has unashamedly failed to keep civilians in Gaza safe.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
I have here [a video] when they [Israeli forces] dropped leaflets on us to evacuate. Leaflets demanding that we evacuate the area. Here it is clearly as you can see. “Head towards…”
this is the trap I’m talking about.
VO:
For the displacement of individuals to be lawful the following conditions are among those that must be met. Ensure people are moved safely, not separated from their families and have access to food,
water, sanitation and healthcare. The evacuation should be temporary, and displaced people should be free and able to return to their homes as soon as possible after the hostilities end in that area.
Israel’s military has displaced 90 percent of the Gaza population, around 1.9 million people.
VO/ANIMATED MAP:
This map shows the evacuation order on October 13, 2023, directing civilians towards supposed ‘safe zones.’ Human Rights Watch investigated the Israeli authorities’ policies and conduct. We found that repeated evacuations, mass destruction, and failure to provide safe passage or access to food, shelter or medical care make the displacement unlawful.
VO:
The level of intent and evidence of a state policy of forced displacement means these are war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
During that time, there was chaos and panic. The street where I was walking was being
bombed, bombed, bombed everywhere.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary
Here we are, displaced in the streets of Jabalia camp. No one knows anything about us,
and we’ve lost all means of communications. We found a car on the street,
and Hisham and I sat inside it. We don’t know where to go, and this car isn’t ours. But we opened its doors and sat inside. If someone finds this phone and we are no longer alive…let them tell the story and broadcast these recordings.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
Suddenly, I saw a massive flash…When you are in the epicenter of an explosion, you feel absolutely nothing. You start checking your body to see if you’ve lost any parts of it.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary
This place was bombed last night. We are now in the early hours of dawn. I was inside this car. I was hit by shrapnel while sitting inside it. Can’t you see how bad it is [the destruction]? The post office building was targeted. While I was sitting inside this car.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
I owe my survival to that car, which shielded us from the blast and the flying shrapnel. Afterward, I decided that we had to escape from the north at least. Our relationship to the camp is our life, it’s [the camp] our whole life.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
Displacement feels like your soul is being torn from your body.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary
Everyone is evacuating to different places. I just left the camp heading to Rafah after being bombed. We’re riding a donkey-drawn cart because there are no cars.
VO/ANIMATED MAP
The Salah al-Din Road is the main highway that runs north-south through the Gaza Strip. Israeli evacuation orders started on October 13, 2023, running until January, 4, 2024. They instructed people to flee using this road and assured “safe passage.” Later evacuation orders told people to use a different route. Investigations by Human Rights Watch through interviews, satellite imagery, photos and videos demonstrate that this road was rarely, if ever, safe.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
Honestly, there are moments when you feel like you are alone on this planet. That day, the electricity was completely cut off from the northern Gaza Strip. And also the water, which the occupation
[Israel] declared they had cut off from Gaza, and the communications and internet networks.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
When I reached Rafah, I realized it was a trap. A mousetrap, as we call it. We lived in a house consisting of three floors. Over 200 members of my family had sought refuge in this house.
Imagine, I was sleeping in a space only as large as my body. If I turn to this side, I bump into something and if I turn to the other side, I bump into something.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
The bombing continues, with massive destruction and limited resources.
TITLE:
Hamoud, Ghassan’s son
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
And this is Hamoud.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
What do you think of the current situation?
SOUNDBITE: Hamoud, [Ghassan’s son] video diary
Good.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
Are you scared of the sounds of bombing?
SOUNDBITE: Hamoud, [Ghassan’s son] video diary
Yes.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
What is your wish?
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
For the war to end.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
Where do you want to go?
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
Do you want to go back home?
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
Come, Bilal.
TITLE:
Bilal, Ghassan’s son
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
What’s your wish, Bilal?
SOUNDBITE: Bilal [Ghassan’s son] video diary
To go back home.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
Do you want to go back home?
SOUNDBITE: Bilal [Ghassan’s son] video diary
Yes, to eat and drink.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
To eat and drink.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary
We hope the war ends and we return to our homes.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
They [Israeli forces] claimed Rafah is a safe area, that Rafah has humanitarian aid. When did aid actually reach Gaza? I spent about a month in Rafah, standing in queues. I stood from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. to get some bread that I bought with my own money. News started spreading that they [Israeli forces] will invade Rafah, and I lived in the Brazil neighborhood on the border. This mix of news and the psychological state caused by the war forced us to flee. Especially that they [Israeli forces] were
heavily bombing apartments and homes. So, our option was to move into a tent with the rest of the displaced people.
VO:
Under the laws of war, Israel, as the occupying power, is only permitted to temporarily evacuate
people under its control for specific reasons. Israel must allow all the displaced to return once hostilities end. Instead, most of housing and civilian infrastructure has been destroyed so that much of Gaza is uninhabitable. Rather than meet its obligations to put in place basic protections to ensure access to food, water, sanitation and health care. Israel has taken steps to cut them off.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
People began fleeing from the displacement camp in Rafah little by little. The camp was so crowded that you couldn’t see the sand because there were so many tents. We arrived here [Deir al-Balah], and as you know, there is no truly safe place in Gaza. The shelling continues in this area. There is no safety. In truth, I don’t recall ever feeling safe since I was displaced from the north. I can’t sleep. My mind is always wandering.
TITLE:
SARA
VO/ANIMATED MAP:
On December 1, 2023, the Israeli military released an interactive map dividing Gaza into 620 numbered blocks and continued to post and distribute evacuation orders referencing this block system. On December 7, 2023, Sara’s family home in Khan Younis was not in a block slated for evacuation. Human Rights Watch interviewed Sara and analyzed satellite imagery, video
and photographs taken from that day. The information gathered indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that civilians were living in this block.
TITLE:
An actor’s voice has been used to protect Sara’s identity.
Sara is not her real name.
SOUNDBITE: Sara
The Israeli’s had renamed our area by blocks so everyone could keep track of where there could be strikes, we were living in block G, number 108. At around 4 p.m. I was coming home from work, what I saw as I approached was a massacre, it was hectic, everyone was screaming, and all I could see was fire and destruction. I was scared because my kids were home and my sisters were taking refuge at my house, so we had about 20 people living in our apartment on the third floor. Thank God my family in the apartment were ok, it was the building just next to us that had been hit. There was so much damage to the building I couldn’t enter, I could see bodies, people under the rubble. Many people died that day. Seeing all of this has affected my kids hugely, it changed us all.
VO/ANIMATED MAP:
By analyzing online evacuation orders and photographs of air-dropped leaflets posted online, Human Rights Watch established that block 108 was not designated for evacuation until six-and-a-half weeks after this strike. Human Rights Watch identified at least six additional strikes in this block before the attack on Sara’s relatives’ home which also damaged hers on December, 7, 2023. Just dozens of meters from that attack two additional strikes were carried out in the same timeframe. Analysis of satellite imagery shows that the attack on Sara’s relatives’ home was not an isolated incident.
VO/ANIMATED MAP:
The evacuation system failed to keep people safe. Evacuation orders were inconsistent, inaccurate and frequently not communicated to civilians at all, or with enough time to allow evacuations. The sheer number of Palestinian civilians forced from their homes demonstrates that displacement in Gaza is widespread.
VO:
It is also systematic and intentional and unlawful, forming part of Israeli state policy. This amounts to a crime against humanity. Israel should stop collectively punishing civilians in Gaza. Governments should publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population as a war crime and crime against humanity and suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel.
TITLE:
Sara, Actor’s voice
SOUNDBITE: Sara
In previous wars they did target specific places, but we would know in advance, and be given warning. This war is completely different. There is nowhere safe for us to go.
SOUNDBITE: Ghassan
I fear living through another displacement experience, and I fear that winter may come before the war ends. Because this tent you see in front of you won’t hold up in winter. The feeling of loss itself is beyond comparison to any other feeling. I hope…that the time will come when I return to my home,
and I rest my head on my pillow in freedom and peace.
END CREDITS:
Narrator: Nadia Hardman
Producer / Editor: Ellie Kealey
Producers: Gabi Ivens, Carolina Jordá Álvarez, Léo Martine, Ekin Ürgen
Videographer: Yousef al Masharawi
Graphics: Win Edson
Additional footage / Photographs: Ghassan Salem, AFP, IMAGO
Music: Audio Network
Israel is the occupying power in Gaza and as such its conduct is governed by international humanitarian law (IHL). Under IHL – or the laws of war – forcible transfer, which means the forced displacement of any civilian inside an occupied territory, is prohibited, and, if committed with criminal intent, is a war crime. The only exception to this fundamental prohibition is when an occupying power evacuates people for their security or for an imperative military reason. For each displacement of a civilian to be lawful, Israel’s actions must also meet the following conditions: i) ensure that safeguards are in place so that the civilian who is forced from their home is moved safely, is not separated from family, and has access to food and water, health care, sanitation, and reception centers or shelter, ii) ensure the evacuation is temporary; and iii) facilitate the displaced person’s return to their home as soon as possible after the end of the hostilities in the area from where the person was displaced.
Israel claims that the displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population has been justified for the security of the population and for imperative military reasons, and it has taken the requisite steps to safeguard civilians. Because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among the civilian population, Israeli officials claim, the military has evacuated civilians to enable it to target fighters and destroy the groups’ infrastructure, such as tunnels, while limiting harm to civilians, such that the mass displacements were lawful. This report, based on interviews with 39 Palestinians who are internally displaced in Gaza, most multiple times, an intricate analysis of Israel’s evacuation system, the widespread destruction evidenced on satellite imagery, the analysis of videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and roads and the humanitarian situation of the population, finds that Israel’s claims of lawful displacement are largely false. Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are instead committing the war crime of forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Demonstrably, Israel has not evacuated Palestinian civilians in Gaza for their security, as they have not been secure during evacuations or on arrival at designated safe zones. Nor has Israel convincingly claimed that it had a military imperative for forcing most Palestinian civilians from their homes. Even if Israel was able to demonstrate such an imperative, its failure to ensure the security and the guarantee of protections of displaced persons as they fled and in the places to which they were displaced would still render the displacement unlawful. The evacuation system failed to keep people safe and instead often served only to spread fear and anxiety. Evacuation orders were inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations or at all. The evacuation orders also failed to take into account the needs of people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance. Designated evacuation routes and safe zones were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli military. Rather than meet its obligations to put in place basic safeguards to ensure access to food, water, sanitation, and health care, Israel has taken steps to cut them off or severely restrict humanitarian aid. Further, Israel is under an obligation to actively facilitate the return of displaced persons to their homes in areas where hostilities have ceased, but it has instead rendered large parts of Gaza uninhabitable. The Israeli military has carried out demolitions, intentionally destroying or severely damaging civilian infrastructure, including schools, and religious and cultural institutions, including after hostilities had largely ceased in an area and its forces controlled the area. The Israeli military is also establishing what appear to be permanent buffer zones – securitized and emptied areas of land between the Israeli and Gaza border where Palestinians will likely not be allowed to enter.
Military Imperative and the Security Exception
The burden is on Israel, as the occupying power of Gaza, to prove that overriding military reasons have made its repeated instructions to evacuate – which have displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population – imperative, or the evacuations were necessary for the security of the population itself. The term “imperative” sets a very high threshold – higher than an ordinary assessment of military necessity. Displacement can only be justified if it is a measure of last resort for military operations where there are no feasible alternatives. It does not suffice for civilians to be at risk from an active or reasonably expected threat from an act (the Israeli bombardment) that would deprive Palestinian armed groups of, or secure for Israel, as the occupier, a military advantage. For there to be a military imperative, the operation threatened must be one whose frustration would threaten the entire military objective in the conflict.
Israel cannot simply rely on the presence of members of Palestinian armed groups, materiel, and installations in Gaza to justify the displacement of civilians. Israel would have to demonstrate that displacement of the civilians was, in each instance, its only option.
Evacuating a protected population for their security refers to the temporary removal or relocation of civilians from an area of danger or imminent harm to a safer location. This can be done to protect the population from military operations, ongoing hostilities, or other risks to their safety. While it could be argued that Israel at times moved Palestinians in Gaza to areas that were safer than areas from which they were ordered to leave, this report demonstrates that evacuation routes and so-called safe zones were consistently and repeatedly bombed, undermining the Israeli military’s position that people were being moved “for their safety.”
Israel cannot rely on the security and safety of civilians as a justification for evacuating people if there are no safe areas to which civilians can move. Ultimately, as this report will show, even if Israel can demonstrate that its actions fall within the displacement exception, its lack of adherence to the strict protections required to make an evacuation lawful demonstrates that its orders for people to move were a pretext for forced displacement.
Evacuation System
While there are not detailed criteria for what constitutes an IHL compliant evacuation system, article 49 of the Geneva Convention states that civilians should be, among other conditions, moved in “safety.” In other words, the fundamental goal is to protect civilians from the dangers of conflict. Instead of protecting Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s evacuation system put people in harm’s way.
The Israeli military began pounding Gaza with airstrikes on October 7, 2023. Days later, overnight into October 13, 2023, the Israeli military ordered more than a million people in northern Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours. This first broad and urgent mass evacuation order was followed up with more orders and directives to Palestinian civilians throughout the north of Gaza to leave their homes and move south. Israel put in place an evacuation system that gave instructions which were unclear, inaccurate, and contradictory, making it extremely difficult for civilians to know where or when to move. Others contained missing or contradictory information about where to go, when, and which destinations were safe, and were corrected only hours later, if at all. For example, on July 1, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for neighborhoods in eastern Khan Younis and Rafah, including al-Fukhari where the European Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in southern Gaza, is located. The next morning, the Israeli military and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) issued a clarification in English on their X accounts stating that the hospital was not subject to evacuation. The COGAT Arabic Facebook page also updated the evacuation order post to include the clarification. However, this clarification was not shared by any of the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson’s social media accounts. By the time the clarifications were issued, staff and patients had reportedly already started to flee the hospital. Many orders were issued online during time periods coinciding with total telecommunications network blackouts in Gaza. Dozens of orders were issued after the time period specified for safe evacuations had already begun, while others were issued after attacks had already started.
Where evacuation orders did suggest a destination or direction of movement, the orders gave far too little time for people to move through what was already an active conflict zone. Overall, Israel’s evacuation system flagrantly failed to ensure civilians could travel safely or reach safety and would be secure after arriving to their place of displacement, and often served only to create widespread fear and confusion, misery, and anxiety. A recent report from the Independent International Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, found that the Israeli military did not offer assistance to those who were unable to evacuate due to disability, age, illness, or other status.
Security Situation on Evacuation Routes and in Designated Evacuation Areas
Where civilians did attempt to move away from areas that were declared combat zones, both the routes and destinations were unsafe. Israeli forces’ fire hit civilians on evacuation routes, notably the main north-south artery, Salah al-Din Road. Ultimately, no destination within Gaza was safe, with the Israeli military repeatedly attacking areas it had designated as evacuation areas, including deadly attacks on locations where humanitarian aid workers had shared their precise coordinates with the Israeli military. For example, on February 20, an Israeli tank fired a medium-to-large-caliber weapon at a multi-story apartment building housing only Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff and their families in al-Mawasi, the Israeli-designated humanitarian safe zone. The attack killed two people and injured seven. MSF said it had provided the coordinates of the building to Israeli authorities and neither saw military objects in the area nor received a warning prior to the attack.
Humanitarian Situation in Designated Evacuation Areas
Under the laws of war, Israel is required to put in place measures to ensure the health, nutrition, and safety of the displaced population if it wants to benefit from the evacuation exception to the prohibition on displacement. Instead, it displaced people to areas where it did not provide them with – and where they could not access – essential goods and services. For example, when Israel designated al-Mawasi as a humanitarian safe zone, the 20 square kilometer area had no running water, bathrooms, or the presence of international humanitarian agencies who could coordinate assistance.
Rather than meet its obligations, Israel’s response to the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has been to take steps to deny access to sufficient humanitarian aid in Gaza. It initially imposed a complete siege on Gaza, cutting off essential public services, including water and electricity, to Gaza’s civilian population and deliberately blocking the entry of fuel and rights-critical humanitarian aid. Since then, Israel has damaged and destroyed resources vital for the realization of human rights, including hospitals, schools, water and energy infrastructure, bakeries, and agricultural land, and has permitted only limited humanitarian access, which remains utterly insufficient to meet the essential needs of the population. As a result, Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian crisis. Children have died from malnutrition and dehydration, and as of October 2024, about 1.95 million out of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were projected to suffer “catastrophic,” “emergency,” or “crisis” levels of food insecurity, according to The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (a tool for improving food security analysis and decision-making). The report further states that “the risk of famine between November 2024 and April 2025 persists as long as conflict continues, and humanitarian access is restricted.”
Since January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has three times ordered provisional measures in South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948. On January 26, 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance…in the Gaza Strip.” Despite this binding order, Israel continued to restrict or block aid. Noting that “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” and citing “the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities,” the ICJ issued further measures in March 2024 ordering Israel to ensure the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance “including food, water, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, alongside medical assistance, including medical supplies and support.” A third ICJ order, issued on May 24, required Israel to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” At the time of publication, the Rafah crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it on May 7, 2024.
Creation of Conditions that Prevent Return
IHL requires any evacuation of a population to be temporary and people must be allowed to return to their homes.
Israeli forces have destroyed the majority of Gaza’s water, sanitation, communications, energy, and transport infrastructure, as well as its schools and hospitals. They have systematically razed orchards, fields, and greenhouses. So much civilian infrastructure has been destroyed that much of Gaza is uninhabitable, and it is inconsistent with Israel’s obligation to ensure that civilians can return when hostilities cease in an affected area. It largely took place after Israeli officials specifically stated that damage, not accuracy, was the purpose of bombardments. The World Bank has estimated that as of January 2024, over 60 percent of residential buildings and over 80 percent of commercial facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza. By August 2024, over 93 percent of Gaza’s schools, and all its universities, had been destroyed or significantly damaged. The United Nations Environment Programme has noted the unprecedented impacts of the war on the environment, exposing the community to rapidly growing soil, water and air pollution and risks of irreversible damage to its natural ecosystems. As of July, the World Health Organization (WHO) has registered more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) since October 7, 2023, and noted that there are no functional hospitals in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah as of writing. The UN Agency for Development (UNDP) has estimated it will cost US$40 to $50 billion to rebuild Gaza and require an effort on a scale the world has not seen since World War II.
Israel has also carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions, including to create an extended “buffer zone” and a new road that bifurcates Gaza in the so-called “Netzarim Corridor.” This permanently changes the land on which they are constructed, involves the demolition of homes and other civilian infrastructure, and demonstrates an intention to prevent Palestinian civilians in Gaza from returning once hostilities have ended. The intention to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza need not be permanent in order to constitute a war crime. What is abundantly clear, however, is many, if not the majority of, Palestinians in Gaza will be permanently displaced considering the level of destruction experienced in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch calls on Israel to respect the right of Palestinian civilians to return to the areas from which they have been displaced in Gaza. It bears remembering that 80 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees and their descendants, people who were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba. Every person has the right to return to their country, a right enshrined in numerous human rights conventions, and affirmed for Palestinian refugees in UN General Assembly resolutions dating back to 1948. For decades, Israeli authorities have consistently denied this right and blocked Palestinian refugees from returning. This historic precedent looms over the experience of Palestinians in Gaza: those Human Rights Watch interviewed frequently spoke of living through a second Nakba. The violations committed against Palestinians forced to leave their homes more than 75 years ago continue against them and their descendants today as millions of Palestinians, including those living in Gaza during the current hostilities, continue to be denied their right to permanently return.
Forced Displacement as a Crime Against Humanity
Forced displacement can amount to a crime against humanity when it is committed as a part of a widespread or systematic “attack directed against a civilian population,” which means the multiple commission of such crimes committed pursuant to a state policy. The crime against humanity of forced displacement is defined under the Rome Statute as deportation or forcible transfer, meaning forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law.
Senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet have repeatedly declared their intent to forcibly displace the population, declaring their policy goal throughout the conflict, from the early days of the war to over a year later, with government ministers stating that the territory of Gaza will decrease, that blowing up and flattening Gaza is beautiful, and that land will be handed to settlers. Avi Dichter, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, said, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” Israeli officials’ statements and actions have indicated they are implementing a plan to create large parts of Gaza as “buffer” areas or corridors, where Palestinians will not be permitted to live. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has at times stated the opposite intention, the actions of the Israeli authorities and military throughout the conflict, as evidenced in this report, together with statements of intent by senior members of government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, demonstrates the underlying state-level policy to forcibly transfer many, if not the majority, of the population in Gaza. Instead of providing for the displaced population, the Israeli authorities have deliberately restricted humanitarian assistance and used starvation as a weapon of war. The Israeli military has brought about widespread destruction in Gaza, much of this caused recklessly as a result of the hostilities or through deliberate razing of land and buildings after the military took control of the area.
Given the sheer number of Palestinian civilians in Gaza driven from their land and the manner of their displacement, and the attempts to make their return impossible, the forced displacement is widespread, systematic, and intentional, and amounts to a crime against humanity.
Ethnic Cleansing
Although not a formal legal term or a recognized crime under international law, “ethnic cleansing” was defined by the final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts on the former Yugoslavia as a purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to remove, by violent and terror-inspiring means, the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. As this report makes clear, the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza was conducted through serious human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The actions of the Israeli authorities in Gaza are the actions of one ethnic or religious group to remove Palestinians, another ethnic or religious group, from areas within Gaza by violent means. The organized, forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, has removed much of the Palestinian population from land, and specific areas of Gaza, that for decades and generations have been their home. Nowhere is this clearer than in areas which have been razed, extended, and cleared for buffer zones and security corridors. The intention of Israeli forces appears likely to ensure they remain permanently emptied and cleansed of Palestinians and, in their place, occupied and controlled by Israeli forces. Taken together, these acts indicate that, at least in the buffer zones and security corridors in Gaza, the Israeli authorities are pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing.
Lack of accountability for grave violations in the OPT has fueled cycles of abuse for years. Victims of serious abuses in Israel and Palestine have faced a wall of impunity for decades. During the current conflict, Israel has cut food, water, and electricity that is vital for the lives of 2.2 million people who have been living under a blockade for 17 years. Entire families have been wiped off the family registry, the health and education systems destroyed, entire districts razed to the ground, all while the victims of these abuses are called “animals.” An entire population is being collectively punished when Israel prevents desperately needed aid from reaching them. The laws of war are clear: atrocities from one side do not justify atrocities from the other side. No party to any conflict is above IHL. Israeli and Palestinian lives have the same dignity, deserve the same protection, and attacks on either should spark the same levels of indignation. Given the grave nature of the violations which have been committed and documented in this report and the pervasive climate of impunity for those crimes, Human Rights Watch has for years pushed the ICC prosecutor to undertake a formal probe consistent with the court’s statute and welcomes the decision by the Prosecutor to seek arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine.
The prevention of return can also amount to the crime against humanity of “other inhumane acts,” using the standard set out by an ICC pre-trial chamber in the Bangladesh/Myanmar situation when it causes great suffering, or serious injury to mental or physical health, and is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, pursuant to a state policy to commit the crime.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Prosecutor to investigate Israeli authorities’ forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.
Human Rights Watch calls on all governments to publicly support the ICC and uphold the court’s independence, and publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution. Above all, Human Rights Watch calls on Israel to urgently and immediately end the mass and forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.
