Amid the continued ground offensive on Gaza City and the escalating destruction and displacement, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are enduring catastrophic humanitarian conditions. Displaced persons in the south of the Strip are suffering from a lack of shelter and the basic necessities of life.
Scenes of families sleeping rough on the bare ground vividly encapsulate the scale of the humanitarian disaster wrought by Israel’s war machine, amounting to an act of genocide against the civilian population.
The Palestinian Civil Defence has confirmed that hundreds of families, forcibly displaced from northern Gaza to the south, have been sleeping in the rough for days under tragic circumstances, unable to find even temporary shelter due to extreme poverty.
It stressed that the Israeli occupation bears full responsibility for this tragedy, which places displaced civilians at risk of death, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, more than 335,000 residents have been forced to flee their homes in Gaza City under intense bombardment, over 60,000 of them in just the last three days. Meanwhile, around 900,000 Palestinians continue to assert their right to remain in the city, refusing to submit to the forced displacement plan, despite relentless bombing and suffocating siege.
The southern areas designated by the Israeli occupation as safe zones are, according to official data, entirely devoid of hospitals, infrastructure, and essential services such as water, food, electricity, and education, making life there virtually impossible. The designated shelters constitute no more than 12% of Gaza’s total area, where over 1.7 million people are being crammed, reflecting a systematic policy of mass forced displacement.
What is unfolding in Gaza meets all the criteria of a “full-fledged act of genocide” under international law. The Israeli occupation’s aggression seeks to destroy an entire population through killing, starvation, blockade, and deprivation of the means of survival, acts that are explicitly prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Moreover, the large-scale forced displacement, targeting of civilians, hospitals, and shelters, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war are well-documented tactics that reflect a deliberate policy which cannot be justified under the pretext of “self-defence.”
According to statistics, the U.S.-backed offensive has killed 65,419 people and injured 167,160 others, mostly women and children, since 7 October 2023. Additionally, 442 people, including 147 children, have died from famine. These shocking numbers lay bare the scale of the catastrophe and place a legal and moral responsibility upon the international community.
The current situation in Gaza represents a campaign of forced displacement imposed by armed force, part of a broader policy of collective punishment that amounts to genocide. As urgent calls to stop the war are ignored, the humanitarian disaster deepens daily, leaving Palestinian civilians, besieged and stripped of their most basic rights, to face an existential war that threatens their very right to life.
