As the ground assault on Gaza City intensifies, with widespread destruction and mass displacement, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are enduring catastrophic humanitarian conditions. In southern Gaza, the displaced population is deprived of shelter and the most basic necessities for survival.
Scenes of families sleeping on the bare ground in the open air starkly illustrate the humanitarian catastrophe created by the Israeli war machine, a reality that amounts to genocide against the civilian population.
According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, hundreds of families who fled from northern to southern Gaza have been sleeping outdoors for days in harrowing conditions, unable to find even temporary shelter due to extreme poverty. The Israeli occupation bears direct responsibility for this tragedy, which exposes displaced civilians to the risk of death, in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 335,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Gaza City due to intense bombardment, including more than 60,000 in just the past three days. Meanwhile, approximately 900,000 Palestinians remain in the city, refusing to comply with forced displacement orders, despite systematic bombardment and a suffocating siege.
The southern areas designated by the occupation as displacement zones, however, completely lack hospitals, infrastructure, and essential services such as water, food, electricity, and education. Life in these areas has become nearly impossible, especially as the shelter zones constitute only 12% of the Gaza Strip’s land area, within which Israeli occupation is attempting to confine over 1.7 million people. This amounts to a clear policy of systematic mass displacement.
What is unfolding in Gaza can rightly be described as a “fully fledged crime of genocide” under international law. Israeli occupation’s aggression seeks the destruction of an entire population through killing, starvation, blockade, and the denial of life-sustaining necessities, all acts prohibited by the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Furthermore, mass forced displacement, targeting of civilians, hospitals and shelters, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war are all well-documented tactics that reflect a deliberate and unjustifiable policy under the false pretext of “self-defence.”
Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli aggression, backed by the United States, has resulted in the killing of 65,419 people and the injury of 167,160 others, most of them women and children. An additional 442 people, including 147 children, have died of hunger. These shocking statistics reveal the scale of the catastrophe and place an urgent legal and moral responsibility on the international community.
What is happening in Gaza today is forced displacement by military force, a form of collective punishment that constitutes genocide. As urgent calls to end the war continue to be ignored, the catastrophe deepens by the day. Trapped and deprived of their most basic rights, Palestinian civilians are facing an existential war that threatens their very right to life.
