Summary

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.

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.

 

Recommendations

To the Israeli Authorities

• Immediately stop forcibly displacing and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
• Until hostilities end, and where evacuation is unavoidable, implement an evacuation system that provides accurate and timely information to the civilian population with instructions on how to safely reach evacuation areas, and that ensures they are safe, have adequate shelter, and meets other humanitarian requirements.
• When issuing evacuation orders, take into account the needs of people with disabilities, and those who are sick or injured, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance. Ensure that evacuation areas can provide for the needs of people with disabilities, the sick, and the injured.
• Publicly declare that all displacement of residents of Gaza is temporary and that they will be able to return to their homes and places of origin as soon as hostilities cease or the reason for the displacement ends, whichever is earliest.
• Comply with all provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.
• End deliberate or indiscriminate or other unlawful attacks on civilian objects, including those essential to survival, in areas of origin for displaced people that render them uninhabitable, including attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure, residences, and farmland.
• Halt mass demolitions in Gaza, including in the “buffer zone” and along the Netzarim and Philadelphi Corridors that might violate laws-of-war prohibitions against attacks on civilian objects and forced displacement of civilians.
• Stop obstructing aid – particularly food, including those items needed by children on a special diet, water, medicine, assistive devices, and fuel – from entering Gaza by fully opening its crossings, urgently opening additional ones, and not placing unjustified restrictions that prevent humanitarian goods from entering Gaza.
• Lift the closure of Gaza and permit the free movement of civilians and goods to and from Gaza, subject to individual screenings and physical inspections for security purposes only as necessary, with transparent requirements; publish lists of banned items that are consistent with international standards on “dual-use” items, and provide written justification for any rejections, with the possibility of appeal.
• Eliminate the “dual-use” label on medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hearing aids, and other assistive devices needed by people with disabilities and people with chronic health conditions, the restriction of which invariably has a disproportionate negative impact on civilians compared to any military advantage.
• Restore access to electricity, water, and telecommunications services.
• Reopen the Israeli side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to ensure that Palestinian civilians in Gaza who choose to exercise their right to leave and seek medical treatment or international protection outside of Gaza will not be prevented from doing so, while ensuring their right to return to Gaza.
• Once hostilities have ended, allow access to international agencies, local partners, and nongovernmental organizations to conduct reconstruction-based assessments and planning, including for unexploded ordinance clearance, and support them to begin reconstruction as soon as possible.
• Engage and work with international agencies, local partners, and NGOs to construct shelters and services to facilitate the return of displaced civilians to the sites of their pre-conflict homes in Gaza, for those who want to return to those places.
• Respect the right of all Palestinians in or outside of Gaza to return to their homes or areas of origin in Gaza, other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, or Israel.
• Cooperate with the International Criminal Court, including responding to requests for assistance and access.
• Set up a fair, accessible, and independent mechanism to provide reparation for gross human rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including compensation, restitution, justice and guarantees of non-recurrence, ensuring victims’ rights are central to the process. This should include compensation for any forced displacement or unlawful destruction of property.
• Cooperate with any international register of damage for the purposes of reparations, as called for by the General Assembly Resolution of September 13, 2024.

To Egypt

• Keep the Egyptian-controlled side of the Rafah border crossing open to Palestinian civilians who want to exercise their right to leave Gaza, in line with the customary international law obligation of nonrefoulement, not to expel or return anyone to a place where they would face the threat of persecution, torture, or other serious harm.
• Ensure Palestinians fleeing Gaza are provided with basic services and support, including access to health care, education, and protection, and help to facilitate the onward movement of Palestinians from Gaza who have legal pathways to other countries.

To All Governments

• Publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a war crime and crime against humanity, as well as other violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law by Israeli authorities, and urge them to immediately halt those crimes and cooperate with international judicial bodies and investigative mechanisms.
• Increase public and private pressure on the Israeli government to stop violating international humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities, to fully comply with its obligations and the binding orders and advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, and to ensure the entry and safe distribution throughout Gaza of adequate aid and provision of basic services. Consider, in that regard, the review and possible suspension of bilateral agreements with Israel, such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as proposed by the governments of Spain and Ireland, and the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement.
• Suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit violations of international humanitarian law with impunity.
• Enforce domestic legislation limiting the transfer of arms and military assistance for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
• Publicly support the International Criminal Court, uphold the court’s independence, and publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution.
• Urge the Government of Israel to grant access to independent, international monitors, including from the UN Special Procedures.
• Impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials credibly implicated in ongoing serious violations, for the purpose of ending these violations.
• Address long-standing impunity by Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups for serious crimes under international law, and support reparations for all victims of gross human rights abuses.
• Support the creation of a register of damages, caused by unlawful Israeli action to persons in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, for the purposes of calculating reparations.

To Donor States, Companies, UN and Other Humanitarian Agencies, and Investors

• Do not provide funding or services where there is a real risk that they would contribute to serious human rights abuses.
• Ensure that all assessments, programming, and planning for reconstruction efforts in Gaza are done in collaboration with Palestinian communities there, and are based on fulfilling the human rights of the population, and do not use the status quo ante as a baseline given the severity of harms caused by Israel’s unlawful 17-year closure of Gaza.

To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

• Investigate Israeli authorities’ forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.

 

Methodology

This report is based on interviews with 39 internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Twenty-two interviewees are male and seventeen are female. All 39 interviews were conducted between November 2023 and June 2024.

Interviews were conducted by telephone in private settings – either completely alone or with the interviewees’ immediate family members present – with assurances of confidentiality. The researcher informed all interviewees about the purpose and voluntary nature of the interviews, and the ways in which Human Rights Watch would use the information. All were told they could decline to answer questions or could end the interview at any time. The researcher told interview subjects they would receive no payment, service, or other personal benefit for the interviews. Interviews were conducted in Arabic using an interpreter and in English if the interviewee spoke English.

To protect confidentiality, pseudonyms are used for all interviewees, except for two who are featured in Human Rights Watch videos.

Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed 184 evacuation orders that the Israeli government posted between October 8, 2023 and August 31, 2024 to official social media accounts, airdropped as leaflets, or delivered by SMS to the residents of Gaza.[1] There is no official data confirming how many evacuation orders were made in the time period covered in this report.

The official social media platforms monitored include the X and Facebook accounts of Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s spokesperson in Arabic, and the Facebook account of the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military body responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid into Gaza. These accounts constitute the principal channels through which evacuation orders were shared on social media. Given that the X account of Lt. Col. Adraee posted the largest number of evacuation orders, predominantly earlier in the day than other accounts, researchers used it as the primary channel of communication to document evacuation orders issued by Israel and documented when the evacuation orders were posted, how much warning they gave people, if any, and where people in various locations were being told to relocate.

In addition, Human Rights Watch searched across social media platforms and the websites of news agencies to find photographs of leaflets. We were unable to verify all the exact dates, when, and locations where leaflets were airdropped, but we aimed to find at least two different sources for the same leaflet to compare the dates they were posted online and where they were reported to have been airdropped. Human Rights Watch reviewed the photographs of leaflets to assess their authenticity by reviewing that the fonts and logos matched those used by the Israeli military and uploaded them on reverse image search engines to check that they were not posted online prior to the date they were believed to have been delivered.

Human Rights Watch was not able to collect an exhaustive list of Israeli evacuation orders because of the high number of phone calls, SMS messages, radio messages, and leaflets airdropped, and our lack of access to Gaza.

Human Rights Watch analyzed dozens of high- and very high-resolution satellite images since October 7, 2023, to document and verify the locations, times, and impacts of many of the attacks included in this report. This allowed us to monitor the damage to residential areas and civilian infrastructure across different governorates in Gaza and track the displacement of the civilian population to temporary, safer areas.

Additionally, Human Rights Watch, utilized derived geospatial datasets generated by UN agencies and mapping groups to assess the scale and extent of destruction across time.

Human Rights Watch analyzed and verified 19 photographs and 19 videos posted online of attacks across Gaza. Researchers compared visual material to satellite imagery to identify exactly where each was recorded, and compared shadows and other time identifiers to determine when the footage was taken. Going frame by frame in the videos, Human Rights Watch observed nine people who had been killed including at least one child and one older woman, as well as people who were injured, or in other ways harmed, as well as buildings, vehicles, and roads that had been damaged. In some cases, Human Rights Watch reviewed and corroborated media reports and investigations which included photographs and videos found online to document findings included in this report.

 

Background

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.[2]

― Fourth Geneva Convention, article 49

Israel's Occupation

Israel has been occupying the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza – known as the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) – since 1967. Contrary to Israeli government claims, the withdrawal of its ground forces from Gaza in 2005 did not end its occupation.[3] In fact, with the exception of Gaza’s border with Egypt,[4] Israel has continuously maintained effective control over Gaza, including its territorial waters and airspace, the movement of people and goods, and the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies. Israel has effectively rendered Gaza an open-air prison.[5]

Israel’s 17-year closure of Gaza has devastated its economy, exacerbated social and political tensions, and isolated and fragmented its people. Even prior to the recent hostilities, the effects of the closure and other restrictions cumulatively established a pattern of Israeli dominance and abuse that amounts to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.[6]

Prohibition of Forced Displacement Under IHL and the Evacuation Exception

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the displacement of protected persons in occupied territories during hostilities, restricts the forced movement of people by an occupying power during conflicts.[7] It prohibits the forcible transfer of civilians within a territory and the deportation of civilians outside of occupied territory. Both categories of displacement fall under the prohibition of forced displacement.[8] Article 49 states:

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.[9]

Forced displacement takes place where the individuals are compelled to move without their genuine consent, by means of force or coercion, from the area in which they are lawfully present.[10] Forcible transfer within a territory does not necessarily require physical force; it includes threats, coercion, or other forms of duress that leave the victims with no real choice but to leave.[11]

In assessing the way civilians have been forced to move within Gaza since October 7, this report will refer to forcible transfer and forced displacement interchangeably.

An occupying power may temporarily evacuate civilians for their security or imperative military reasons. In this case, however, article 49 specifies that the occupying power:

• Must ensure that evacuations, to the greatest practicable extent, ensure that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effectuated in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated;
• Must ensure that evacuated persons are transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased; and
• Must not displace protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when material reasons make it impossible to avoid such displacement.[12]

The extent and application of these exceptions is subject to a degree of interpretation, especially as article 49 states that an occupying power should adhere “to the greatest practicable extent” to the protections listed, but certain principles have been clearly established by courts, tribunals, and international humanitarian law (IHL) commentaries.[13] These include that the displacement must occur in a manner consistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present and consistent with the protection of civilians’ human rights. In addition, if displacement is conducted in an “atmosphere of terror,” it negates any claim that the evacuation was for imperative military reasons.[14]

The Geneva Conventions are clear that evacuated civilians must be treated humanely and that the occupying power ensures their safety and that they are provided with adequate shelter, food, water, and medical care. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary adds that:

This wording is intended to cover the contingency of an improvised evacuation of a temporary character when urgent action is absolutely necessary in order to protect the population effectively against an imminent and unforeseen danger. If the evacuation has to be prolonged as a result of military operations and it is not possible to return the evacuated persons to their homes within a comparatively short period, it will be the duty of the Occupying Power to provide them with suitable accommodation and make proper feeding and sanitary arrangements.[15]

Imperative Military Reason

Israel is bound by the laws of war to act in a manner which minimizes civilian harm. On October 7, referring to Gaza as a “city of evil” that Israel would reduce “to ruins,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced:

All the places where Hamas is organized, of this city of evil, all the places where Hamas hides, operates from – we will turn them into cities of ruins. … I say to the residents of Gaza: get out of there now, because we will act everywhere and with all the strength.[16]

At the first provisional measures hearing at the International Court of Justice on January 12, 2024, legal counsel for Israel stated that “Israel is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.”[17] Another lawyer representing Israel argued that civilian harm was both inevitable in Gaza, and that Hamas was to blame: “Urban warfare will always result in tragic deaths, harm and damage, but in Gaza these undesired outcomes are exacerbated because they are the desired outcomes of Hamas.”[18]

Regardless of its stated objectives, Israel is bound by the IHL rules on the conduct of hostilities. Those rules set out the obligations of each party to a conflict and take into account the conduct of the adversary, including during fighting in population centers. Forced displacement is not the unavoidable result of the lawful conduct of hostilities but a clear violation of Israel’s own obligations.

Under IHL, in circumstances where Israel intends to displace civilians, it is permitted to do so only in cases where it can demonstrate this is necessary for the security of the civilians involved or for a “military imperative.” The concept is narrowly defined in order to prevent abuse, ensuring that any such actions are justified by urgent military needs and do not contravene other IHL principles aimed at protecting civilians.

It has been noted that “courts have set a high threshold for accepting imperative military reasons as a justification, only doing so when civilian evacuations are deemed vital to the success of broader military operations.”[19] For instance, this might include situations where civilian areas need to be evacuated to avoid casualties during intense combat operations or to clear a zone for a critical military operation where the presence of civilians would significantly impede military objectives. For there to be an imperative military reason, it must be “overriding.”[20]

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli military requesting information as to whether Israel had an imperative military reason or a reason related to the security of the population, to immediately displace most of the population in Gaza. We did not receive any substantive response. On October 10, the Israeli military spokesman, R. Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a public statement that “while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we’re focused on what causes maximum damage,” and that Israeli attacks to date had already used “thousands of tonnes of munitions.”[21]

In any event, in each case of attack and evacuation, Israeli commanders are required to consider all alternatives to displacement and to minimize the impact to civilians where displacement was deemed unavoidable.[22] Notably, Israel has had complete control over the timing of the bombardment and associated displacement. With regard to the first mass evacuation orders issued on October 13, 2023, for example, a military imperative would likely not only require Israel to show that the mass evacuation of most Palestinians in northern Gaza was unavoidable, but also that it was required immediately. Israeli decision-makers had to be certain there were no possible options for a more deliberate and orderly evacuation plan for it to achieve its military objectives. It is important to note that it does not need to amount to the mass evacuation of the entire population of northern Gaza to potentially involve an act of forced displacement; the forcible transfer of even one individual can constitute a war crime under IHL.

Even if an imperative military reason existed, the evacuations on October 13, 2023 and subsequent evacuations would still amount to forced displacement because of the immense harm suffered by the civilian population in Gaza, including an absence of meaningful efforts by Israel to erect safeguards to ensure that humanitarian needs would be met. To the contrary, Israel’s policy of starving the population[23] while displacing them demonstrates a failure to protect civilians and further proof that the evacuation orders amount to forced displacement.[24] Exacerbating the impact on displaced people of the overall siege of Gaza, during the over one year of hostilities, the Israeli military has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to move to areas where civilian infrastructure was either not scaled for a large population, such as the al-Mawasi “safe zone,” in previously sparsely populated areas near the seashore, or where previous rounds of bombardment and fighting had extensively damaged and destroyed civilian infrastructure, leaving the displaced with utterly inadequate access to water, food, medical care, and shelter. Additionally, Israel cannot plausibly claim it is conforming to permissible exceptions of military necessity and civilian safety if it forcibly displaces civilians in a manner inconsistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present. As this report will show, the widespread destruction throughout Gaza renders return almost impossible, at least in the foreseeable future.

Any widespread or systematic displacement not justified by imperative military reasons or safety of civilians would constitute forced displacement and if found to be widespread or systematic, pursuant to a state policy, a crime against humanity.

 

An Assessment of Israel’s Displacement of the Civilian Population

Buildup to the October 13 Evacuation Order

Israel launched a massive military campaign in Gaza hours after armed groups, principally the military wing of Hamas, carried out their attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which included the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.[25] Israel attacked locations throughout Gaza, from Beit Lahiya in the north to Rafah in the south. On October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the country was “at war,”[26] and the government officially proclaimed a “state of war” the following day.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defense, ordered a complete siege of Gaza on October 9, stating there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”[27] This was followed by a statement from then-Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, on the same day confirming the extreme blockade of Gaza and the severance of basic goods necessary for rights-essential public services to function: “I ordered that the water supply be immediately cut off from Israel to Gaza. Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday. What was will not be.”[28]

On October 10, Gallant said of Israel’s war plans:

This is the ISIS of Gaza. This is what we are fighting against. Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything [even] if it doesn’t take one day, it will take…weeks, or even months, we will reach all places.[29]

Human Rights Watch interviewees described watching in horror as their residential buildings and surrounding areas came under attack. They recounted their escape in panic, amidst scenes of carnage and destruction, having themselves suffered or witnessed injuries and seeing their loved ones killed. Most said they saw airstrikes and bombardments and heard hostilities behind and ahead of them as they fled. At the time, the Israeli military spokesperson, R. Adm. Daniel Hagari, declared their intention to “restore security to the people of Israel” stating that “Hamas are hiding among Gazan civilians, inside Gazan homes and schools, hospitals and mosques… Israel will target Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists wherever they will be in Gaza. We will do whatever it takes…”[30]

Anas, a 48-year-old man with a physical disability from al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Rimal and north of Wadi Gaza, described how a building he estimated was one meter from his home, and a few meters from a nearby market, was hit in the morning of October 9.[31] Anas said he did not receive a warning before this attack, which took place before the general October 13, 2023 evacuation order.[32] He said he had to pull himself and several of his seven children from the rubble of his home:

It was maybe 10:30 a.m., my wife was up and preparing breakfast, we were just doing our daily routine – suddenly we heard a huge noise. There was so much dust. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn't see much because of the dust.… I had to clear myself from the rubble. I started pulling my kids from the rubble.[33]

Two of Anas’ children had gone to the market that morning to buy sweets:

I went looking for my missing kids, looking all over the place, asking my neighbors. It was chaos. People were telling me different things. Some were saying they were under the rubble. It took me from 10:30 a.m. until 1:00 a.m. the next day to find out where they were. I found out eventually that some people had taken my daughter to al-Shifa hospital. She had shrapnel in her eyes and her leg was injured.[34]

After finding both of his children, Anas sought shelter in a relative’s home, four streets away from his own. Four days later, another apparent Israeli attack flattened a building 200 meters from that place, he said, forcing them to flee to another location.[35]

By the time Israel issued its first mass evacuation order on October 13, 2023, government officials had already stated that they intended to enforce a total siege that would make civilians unable to meet their humanitarian needs. Declaring that Israel would “continue to tighten the siege until the Hamas threat to Israel and the world is removed,” then-Minister of Energy Katz on October 11 said:

For years we supplied Gaza with electricity, water, and fuel. Instead of saying thank you, they sent thousands of human animals to slaughter, murder, rape and kidnap babies, women and the elderly – that’s why we decided to stop the flow of water, electricity and fuel and now their local power station has collapsed and there is no electricity in Gaza.[36]

The UN special rapporteur on internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur, estimated that 423,000 people had already been forcibly driven from their homes before October 13, 2023.[37]

The October 13 Evacuation Order and Israel’s Evacuation System

October 13 Evacuation Order

On October 13, 2023, the Israeli military ordered all the residents of northern Gaza – more than a million people – to evacuate to the south.[38] Written in broad and compulsory terms, instructing the population to leave the entire area of northern Gaza, this directive served as an order to evacuate rather than a specific warning of an imminent attack. They issued this order by airdropping leaflets, posting on social media channels, on television broadcasts, and through text messages and phone calls.[39] Just before midnight on October 12, team leaders of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Safety and Security in Gaza were told by Israeli military that this evacuation would have to take place within twenty-four hours.[40] Human Rights Watch could not find this time period referenced in other evacuation orders delivered on October 13, 2023 and Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN that any deadline “may slip.”[41] Israel justified the mass evacuation order as being for the safety of the civilian population and stated military reason for displacing the population was centered on the presence of Hamas fighters and military infrastructure, including Hamas’ extensive tunnel infrastructure, which the Israeli military identified as a threat.[42] Israel’s evacuation order claimed that Hamas fighters were utilizing civilian areas for military purposes, thereby necessitating the displacement of civilians to minimize casualties during military operations.

On the same day, however, the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, stated:

It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up; they could have fought against that evil regime...[43]

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued the following statement calling on the Israeli authorities to rescind the order:

[The] order by the Israel Defense Forces to Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate their homes within 24 hours was dangerous and deeply troubling. Any demand for a mass evacuation on extremely short notice could have devastating humanitarian consequences. The evacuation order applies to approximately 1.1 million people. It applies to a territory that is already besieged, under aerial bombardment and without fuel, electricity, water, and food…. As secretary general of the United Nations, I appeal to Israeli authorities to reconsider.[44]

The UN special rapporteur on internally displaced persons condemned the evacuation order as a potential crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law:

Forcible population transfers constitute a crime against humanity, and collective punishment is prohibited under international humanitarian law…

It is inconceivable that more than half of Gaza’s population could traverse an active war zone, without devastating humanitarian consequences, particularly while deprived of essential supplies and basic services.[45]

Israel’s Evacuation System

The October 13, 2023 order forms part of what Human Rights Watch has termed an “evacuation system” that combines evacuation orders and directives to Palestinians in Gaza to move from their homes and other places of refuge to evacuation areas and warnings that specific areas or buildings would be under attack.[46]

Advance warnings are treated differently to evacuation orders under international humanitarian law (IHL). A warning relates to the IHL obligation to give advanced and effective warning of impending targeted attacks that might affect a civilian population, unless the situation does not permit it.[47] The primary purpose of advance warnings is to allow civilians sufficient time to leave an area or take cover to reduce civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects. Advance warnings are typically issued shortly before an attack is carried out, assuming that the tactical situation permits such a warning without compromising the military operation.

A lawful evacuation order is an exception to the general prohibition on arbitrarily displacing people from their homes and usually issued by a military or governmental authority for the removal of civilians from certain areas where there is a high risk of conflict or danger. These orders can be issued in anticipation of military operations that may last over a more extended period or in response to ongoing or expected threats, such as sustained bombings or other forms of hostilities. Lawful evacuation orders would aim to safeguard the civilian population by moving them to safer locations. There is a legal requirement on parties to an armed conflict to remove civilians and civilian objects under their “control” from the vicinity of military objects, to the extent this is feasible.[48]

In this way, advance warnings are specific to imminent attacks and aim to reduce harm from a specific operation. On the other hand, evacuation orders are broader, involving relocation due to sustained or significant threats. Advance warnings are typically immediate and short-term, linked to specific military actions. In contrast, evacuation orders may involve longer-term displacement and are not necessarily linked to a single specific action. While linked, both correspond to different legal standards and the law on evacuation sets a much higher standard compared with the obligation to give an effective warning. An evacuation order is also an instruction.

Israel itself has argued that its practices form part of a coherent humanitarian effort to protect civilian lives and has explained this as part of its oral argument at the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures hearings on January 12, 2024:

The IDF [Israeli military] maintains a Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit to undertake this task. It works full-time to provide advance notice of areas in which the IDF [Israeli military] intends to intensify its activities, co-ordinate travel routes for civilians and secure these routes. This unit has developed a detailed map so that specific areas can be temporarily evacuated, instead of evacuating entire areas…The IDF [Israeli military] also enacts localized pauses in its operations to allow civilians to move. It does this even though Hamas does not agree to do the same and has even attacked IDF [Israeli military] forces securing humanitarian corridors…The IDF [Israeli military] employs a range of additional measures in accordance with the obligation to take precautionary measures under international humanitarian law. For example, it provides effective advance warnings of attacks where circumstances permit. To date, the IDF [Israeli military] has dropped millions of leaflets over areas of expected attacks with instructions to evacuate and how to do so, broadcast countless messages over radio and through social media warning civilians to distance themselves from Hamas operations, and made over 70,000 individual phone calls, including to occupants of the targets, warning them of impending attacks.[49]

While Human Rights Watch notes that both evacuation orders and warnings fall under the umbrella of Israel’s evacuation system, it is beyond the scope of this report to undertake an investigation of individual attacks that took place in Gaza, the legality of these attacks, and the effectiveness of warnings given to people in the attacked locations. This report covers an assessment of the evacuation orders given by Israel.[50]

As already noted, the displacement of Palestinians can only be justified as a lawful evacuation if there are imperative military reasons or if the security of civilians requires it. Israel would also have to ensure that displacement protections were in place and that displacement occurred in a manner consistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present and consistent with the protection of the civilians’ human rights.

The following section presents Human Rights Watch’s analysis showing that the evacuation system gave instructions through unreliable means that were unclear, inaccurate, and contradictory, making it very difficult for civilians to know where or when to move. Where evacuation orders did suggest a destination or direction of movement, the orders gave far too little time for over one million people to move through what was already an active conflict zone; both the routes and the destinations were often unsafe. Not only was there no safe place in Gaza, but these destinations and routes also came under attack during hostilities.

Israel did not put in place protections. Instead, through the widespread destruction of humanitarian resources, such as hospitals, bakeries, and agricultural land and its stated policy of cutting off all people in Gaza from resources essential to the realization of their human rights, such as water and electricity, Israel intentionally reduced the already limited ability of Palestinian civilians in Gaza to meet their own needs, leading to a humanitarian crisis where children are now dying from starvation.[51]

Israel’s widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including residential areas, agricultural land, and cultural buildings, rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable, is also in direct conflict with its obligations to conduct its operations in a manner consistent with civilians returning.

 

Israel’s Harmful Evacuation System

While Israel has claimed that its “evacuation orders” were an attempt to protect Palestinian civilians, our study reveals that…the “humanitarian measures” employed by the Israeli military have failed to provide protection for the Palestinian civilian population…but rather have amplified the forced transfer and mass displacement of Palestinians.[52]

― Forensic Architecture, “Humanitarian Violence”

This section will examine how Israel’s evacuation system did not move Palestinian civilians in conditions of “safety” as required by international humanitarian law (IHL).[53]

Israeli authorities used various platforms to disseminate evacuation orders. These can be classified into two categories: first, orders disseminated for passive reception, such as airdropped leaflets, phone calls, SMS messages, or drone loudspeakers; second, orders people had to seek out actively by checking websites, social media platforms, or television and radio broadcasts.

The blanket evacuation order, issued on October 13, 2023, contained one central instruction to residents of northern Gaza: Go south. Israeli authorities disseminated this order on their official social media channels and television programs, through airdropped leaflets, and via phone calls and SMS messages.[54] Airdropped leaflets included a rudimentary map of Gaza indicating where civilians should move.[55]

Subsequent evacuation orders became more specific, calling for particular neighborhoods to evacuate often along with maps with arrows pointing in the direction to flee. However, due to the size and scale of the maps shared, it was not always possible for the reader to know if they were in an area slated for evacuation.

On December 1, the Israeli military published an online map on its website, that could be accessed using a QR code from a mobile phone, that divided Gaza into a grid of 620 numbered blocks, allowing the user to know in which of these blocks they are located, using the location services of their phone, assuming one had a phone with sufficient battery charge and internet connection.[56] The Israeli military then continued to publish leaflets and social media posts indicating the blocks slated for evacuation.[57]

Recreation of the Grid Block Map Originally Published by the Israeli Military on December 1, 2023

Between the first evacuation order on October 8, 2023 and August 31, 2024, Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed 184 distinct evacuation orders that the Israeli government posted to official social media accounts,[58] airdropped as leaflets, or delivered by SMS to the residents of Gaza.

On March 13, 2024, Forensic Architecture, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Al-Haq issued a joint report analyzing the Israeli evacuation system from October 8, 2023 until February 16, 2024 and found that it “created confusion and panic by providing unclear, incorrect, inconsistent, elastic, unspecified, conflicting, and inaccessible instructions, formats, names and communication protocols.”[59]

Human Rights Watch research, presented below, supports these findings. Our findings show that faulty information was rife across these orders they were often inaccurate or inconsistent across platforms and sowed confusion about when, where, and how people should evacuate. This resulted in a fearful and chaotic atmosphere that oftentimes put Palestinians in harm’s way.

Reliance on Network Connections

On December 1, the day the online map was published, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) observed, “It is unclear how those residing in Gaza would access the map without electricity and amid recurrent telecommunications cuts.”[60]

Almost immediately after October 7, 2023, telephone and internet services in Gaza began experiencing significant disruptions.[61] Continuous disruptions in communication networks are a result of damage to core communications infrastructure, cuts to electricity, fuel blockades, and apparently deliberate shutdowns through technical measures by Israeli authorities.[62]

Telecommunications services in Gaza had already been severely degraded since the start of the hostilities on October 7.[63] Widespread phone and internet outages occurred in Gaza on October 27, 2023, amid a concerted Israeli bombardment, almost entirely cutting off the 2.2 million residents from the outside world.[64]

Since the start of the conflict, Gaza has suffered multiple communication blackouts, usually the result of attacks impacting communications infrastructure.[65] The longest blackout lasted a week in January 2024 when all telecommunications services throughout Gaza were down. On January 22, 2024, Paltel, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and one of the few remaining operational providers in Gaza, posted on X that telecom services in Gaza were down for the tenth time since October 7, 2023.[66] These periods of blacked out telecom services lasted between one day to a week. During these blackouts, the Israeli military continued to issue evacuation orders online.

Inadequacies of Online Evacuation Orders

Human Rights Watch found that the information contained in evacuation orders posted online was sometimes inaccurate and, in some cases, changed throughout the day, which would mean requiring constant connectivity and the foresight to check and recheck information.

Human Rights Watch found multiple discrepancies among the three main social media channels Israeli authorities used to disseminate evacuation information.[67] For example, an October 21 evacuation order telling Khirbet Ikhza’a residents to move to al-Mawasi appeared only on the Facebook account of the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), not on Israel’s other two social media platforms.[68] This was the only order posted online that addressed residents of southern Gaza at a time when evacuation instructions exclusively targeted those in the north.

Human Rights Watch identified 58 occasions in which an evacuation order posted on one social media channel was not posted on one or both of the other two channels.[69] Ten of these posts contained crucial information, for instance announcing for the first time a new neighborhood or block slated for evacuation.[70] Examples include an October 21 COGAT Facebook page announcement that warned that anyone within a newly designated “war zone” area within 1,000 meters of the border fence “puts their life in danger.”[71] It took another four days for this announcement to be posted on the Israeli military’s Arabic Spokesperson’s X account[72] and it was never posted on his Facebook account.

Errors and Confusion Over Where People Should Evacuate

In addition to the problems in the dissemination of evacuation orders outlined above, Human Rights Watch found 16 instances where evacuation messages themselves contained missing or contradictory instructions as to the locations from which and to which people were meant to evacuate or where the labeling, marking, or wording on the maps accompanying the order did not align with the text.[73]

In 12 cases, more than one error occurred on the same evacuation order.[74]

On December 3, the Israeli military posted an evacuation order on X at 6:36 a.m. with detailed information and a map showing residents in certain blocks in Khan Younis where they should go.[75] Nearly nine hours later, at 2:58 p.m., the Israeli military corrected the post with a new map showing a different area where civilians were directed to go.[76] Other errors in the same December 3 evacuation order, however, remained uncorrected. The caption in the X post instructed people living in blocks 36, 38 through 54, and 219 through 221 to evacuate, but the heading on the map provided a different list of block numbers: 36, 47 through 54, and 221 through 219, which resulted in the omission of nine blocks. Additionally, blocks 55, 99, and 104 were highlighted on the map despite not being listed either in the heading or the caption of the post.[77]

According to population figures inadvertently included in the source code of the Israeli military’s evacuation webpage, as previously reported by Human Rights Watch, the blocks in Khan Younis listed in the heading on the map had a total population of 86,177 people.[78] Based on this data there were approximately 23,452 people in the nine omitted blocks at the time the data was collected. There were also three additional blocks highlighted on the evacuation map that were not included in the caption or header, representing another 8,137 people. It is not known by Human Rights Watch how current or accurate this population data is, however, according to these figures, it would mean that more than 31,000 people did not receive a comprehensive evacuation order. According to the UN, the area designated for evacuation covered 20 percent of Khan Younis and had nearly 117,000 residents.[79]

In 20 cases, highlighted areas on the maps did not cover blocks to be evacuated in a precise way and some blocks were only partially highlighted, rendering the question over who exactly should evacuate unclear.[80]

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.[81] The next morning, the Israeli military[82] and COGAT[83] 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.[84] However, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson did not share any of the clarifications on any of his social media accounts. The Israeli military issued these clarifications hours after humanitarian groups had published pleas to rescind the order to evacuate the hospital, and news reports circulated online of the hospital being evacuated of patients, staff and essential equipment, for instance, on the back of large lorries.[85] By the time the clarifications were issued, staff and patients had reportedly already started to flee the hospital.[86]

A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that the map accompanying the December 3 evacuation order was rotated contrary to convention, with north positioned on the left, making the map “misleading.”[87] Human Rights Watch also found that the subsequent block maps released by the Israeli military were rotated in the same way and none of them included a north arrow, which is commonplace on maps in order to communicate their orientation to the user. In the absence of a north arrow, a map’s user would typically assume that the top of the map is north. However, since the maps’ rotations were distorted, this assumption was often invalid, creating additional confusion about the direction in which civilians should flee for their safety. For example, the June 27 evacuation order contains an arrow pointing to the evacuation area on the map and instructs people to move south. However, without the north arrow, a user could have perceived the instruction to move west – as the arrow is pointing to the left of the map – which is usually read as to the west on a conventional map.[88]

A day after the Israeli military issued the online map of the blocks, on December 2, they also issued a “neighborhood-based map” on their website, which they removed later that same day.[89]

Separately, also on December 2, Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Adraee, posted an evacuation order on X for residents in the south and north of Gaza.[90] The order was accompanied by five maps; each highlighted different blocks whose residents were instructed to evacuate and showing them, using arrows, where they should go. One of the highlighted areas that the maps visually instructed people to evacuate from included al-Fukhari neighborhood (this instruction was conveyed visually through the map but not specifically stated in the accompanying text).[91] Yet less than 24 hours later, on December 3 and December 4, the same X account listed a well-known IDP shelter in al-Fukhari as one of the areas people should move to for their safety.[92] Similarly, on July 7, the Israeli military instructed residents of Gaza to evacuate to “known shelters” in the west of Gaza City.[93] Less than 24 hours later on July 8, the Israeli military this time ordered neighborhoods in the west of Gaza City to evacuate to shelters in Deir al-Balah, in the south.[94]

An analysis published by CNN points to other flaws related to the aforementioned December 2 evacuation order posted by Lt. Col. Adraee and the contradictions in Israeli military guidance.[95] CNN’s analysis shows that certain blocks, such as blocks 720 and 717, are presented simultaneously as safe and unsafe on the two maps included in the same post calling for evacuation of residents in northern Gaza.

Errors and Confusion Over When People Should Evacuate

Human Rights Watch reviewed and verified the time windows given to Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate and found irregularities that rendered the evacuation orders unpredictable and confusing.

In total, 47 of the evacuation orders analyzed by Human Rights Watch contained periods of time during which people were directed to evacuate, typically between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. or 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.[96] These included 46 orders on X and Facebook, and one via airdropped leaflet. While at the beginning of the conflict, the evacuation messages often specified timeframes for evacuation, at later stages, evacuation timeframes were mostly omitted.[97] Aside from the twenty-four-hour period provided to the UN on October 12,[98] the longest time window identified by Human Rights Watch was given overnight on November 5, with 10 hours 25 minutes,[99] and the shortest time window was 2 hours and 53 minutes, issued after the evacuation window had already begun on November 13.[100] Of the 47 evacuation orders analyzed, 26 orders were posted online after the evacuation window had already begun.[101]

The evacuation orders also included inconsistent, intermittently changing time windows to evacuate, making it hard for people to know when it was safe to move and plan for the following days. For instance, evacuation orders on October 13,[102] 14,[103] and 15,[104] told residents of Gaza City a different time to move south along Salah al-Din Road, a major north-south artery in Gaza, warning them to be off the road by 8 p.m., 4 p.m., and 1 p.m., respectively.

 

Insufficient Time to Respond to Evacuation Orders

You must evacuate your homes immediately and go to the south of Wadi Gaza.

- Israeli military evacuation order, October 13, 2023

International humanitarian law (IHL) does not specify a precise amount of time that an evacuation order must give civilians to leave an area, but it would be reasonable to assume that Palestinians in Gaza should have been given orders to leave in a timely manner that were feasible to follow within that timeframe, allowing civilians enough time to evacuate safely.

On October 13, Israeli forces issued a general evacuation order to all residents in Gaza north of Wadi Gaza. But even before this evacuation order was issued, a massive campaign of Israeli air strikes had, as of that same day, already killed 1,900 people in Gaza, including at least 583 children, according to the Gaza health ministry.[105] Israeli forces also issued additional evacuation orders to people in different areas of northern Gaza that day, which had shorter or immediate time windows for evacuation. But in multiple cases, witnesses from different areas in northern Gaza told Human Rights Watch that Israeli attacks commenced in their areas either before they received these evacuation orders, or within hours of receiving them, and that the bombardments made it impossible to evacuate, regardless of whether these orders instructed them to move immediately. Civilians who remain in besieged or contested areas continue to retain their protection under the laws of war, even if they do not comply with evacuation orders.[106] This section will not assess the lawfulness of attacks in Gaza, but the impact of the Israeli military’s evacuation orders in midst of intense bombardments.

Ghassan, a 34-year-old man, from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza – the largest of the eight refugee camps in Gaza, with over 119,540 registered residents as of 2023, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)[107] – said the Israeli military airdropped leaflets on the camp at around noon on October 15, which he read, instructing people to evacuate for the south. He explained how he did not leave immediately because he did not know where to go, but that within a few hours, at 2:30 p.m., the Israeli military started attacking the area with explosive munitions.[108] He described the desperation and panic of the moment:

At 2:30 p.m. on the same day [October 15] the Israeli military started bombing our area – our neighborhood [in Jabalia]. After maybe two hours from [airdropping] the paper leaflets. When the bombing started, I started running towards my building but then I saw people running out of the building. I was trying to find my family, and I kept asking people about my family. People said probably they’ve gone to a small school nearby. But I couldn’t find them there. I was asking everyone and no one could help. There was no way to contact my family because the phones didn’t work.[109]

As described earlier in this report, in October 2023, telephone and internet services in Gaza were significantly disrupted. On the same night, Ghassan took refuge in a car with his cousin next to an UNRWA clinic and a post office in Jabalia which he said was struck in an Israeli airstrike shortly after he took refuge there:

That night I was so close to death… I saw a bright light and I completely lost consciousness for maybe 40 seconds. When I woke up, I felt something was wrong, my body was heavy. My cousin was on the driver’s side. I tried to open the car door, my body was so stressed, it was hard to open the door. I got out of the car, and people were running to me. The Israelis attacked the post office, and the car was parked next to it. I looked at my cousin; he had lost consciousness and was covered in blood. There were two ambulances and the people approached us to check on us. When I reached the ambulance, I opened the camera on my phone and saw myself full of shrapnel and blood. We didn’t know where the injuries were. People took me to the Indonesian Hospital; I had shrapnel in my back and face.[110]

The fact that Israeli forces began intense attacks in the Jabalia refugee camp, apparently using explosive munitions with wide area effects, within a few hours of airdropping evacuation notices on the camp, could indicate that the Israeli military did not give civilians enough time to evacuate the area. On October 16, Ghassan left with his family to Rafah and at the time of interview was living in a tent next to the sea, without access to adequate food, water or sanitation facilities, or medical care.

Omar, a 35-year-old man with five children, aged between two and six, woke up at 5 a.m. on October 13 when his building in Yarmouk Street in north Gaza came under attack by what he said were Israeli airstrikes.[111] He said he did not receive an evacuation order before the airstrikes.[112] Human Rights Watch confirmed that the October 13 general evacuation order was shared for the first time that day at 7:15 a.m., on Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee’s Facebook account.[113] In total, 39 members of Omar’s family were inside the building at the time, of whom four were killed, including his six-year-old son, and 12 were injured, Omar said:

The first bomb hit in between our building and the one next door and exploded and the second went through our building. The house collapsed. When the [first] bomb hit, I jumped out of my apartment and was trying to leave. When the second hit, I was on the stairs in between the floors. I could see through the walls and through the house. I saw the body of one of my nieces that looked like she had been blasted from her apartment into a neighbor’s. My brother’s wife and kids and her aunt were all completely covered under the rubble. There was no way for us to take them to the hospital.[114]

Omar rushed those injured whom he could access to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. His heavily pregnant wife suffered severe burns as well as several broken bones. At the time of interview, Omar and his family were sheltering in a tent in a displacement camp in Khan Younis. Given the military operation in Khan Younis in December 2023, it is likely Omar and his family were subsequently forced to flee once again.

Sahar, a 42-year-old woman with an 11-year-old son, living in Beit Lahiya, a city in northern Gaza close to Israel, said she and her family left their home on October 14 “because of the excessive bombing to civilian houses, which killed entire families.”[115] She added, “The airstrikes were close to my house, so we didn’t have a choice but to leave.”[116] She said she received recorded telephone calls from the Israeli military to leave and read airdropped paper leaflets, but the attacks had already started:

Yes, the leaflets and recorded calls were what I understood to be evacuation orders, and yes, we wanted to follow them, but could not because the Israelis started bombing the area heavily even before the announcement. People were killed in huge numbers and in brutal ways.[117]

Sahar went on to recall her journey to the shelter in her town amid the bombardments:

From my house to the shelter in our town, we went walking (around two kilometers), there were airstrikes while we were walking but we followed people and survived. In the shelter my child who is 11 years old knew that many of his friends and classmates were killed and he was terrified and kept thinking that he will be killed too. I tried to block all the news from reaching him, but we were in a place with zero privacy; everyone was talking about the deaths and the horrible situation in front of the kids.[118]

It is clear from the above accounts together with many other interviews Human Rights Watch conducted with Palestinians in Gaza, that the early days of the war in the lead up and immediate aftermath of the general evacuation order of October 13, were marked by terror, death, and panic as people had limited time to evacuate their homes amid continuous airstrikes and bombardments.

Human Rights Watch documented in two reports that Israeli military also failed to provide adaptable evacuation procedures for children and adults with disabilities, who needed support to evacuate.[119] In June, the UN Commission of Inquiry also found that Israeli forces did not offer assistance to those who were unable to evacuate due to age, illness or disability or other status.[120]

Ghazal, a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, who had lost her assistive devices in an attack on her home on October 11, and who tried to follow the evacuation orders from October 13 to flee south described the difficulties she faced that eventually led her to beg her family to leave her behind:

We had no idea where we were heading. That period was the hardest I’ve ever gone through. It feels like black memories I don’t want to hold onto because I don’t want to keep thinking about them. I was a burden on them [my family], an extra load alongside their belongings. I couldn't find any means of transportation. Even people without disabilities struggled with the walk, so you can imagine what it was like for someone with a disability.

We tried to grab onto any cart or vehicle on the road, but everyone was looking for help. Eventually, my father decided to carry me on his shoulders. I refused and decided to push myself to walk on my feet for as long as possible. I felt at that moment that death was near.

I gave up and sat on the ground in the middle of the road, crying. I told them to go on without me.[121]

 

Nowhere Safe in Gaza

We have established a safe zone.[122]

- Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, November 10, 2023

Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Not hospitals, not shelters, not refugee camps. No one is safe. Not children. Not health workers. Not humanitarians.[123]

- Martin Griffiths, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, December 5, 2023

Israeli authorities have not only issued evacuation orders that have been unclear, inconsistent, contradictory, and impossible to comply with in the allotted time, but it has also regularly failed to provide destinations or routes of travel that were safe. For these reasons, Israel’s evacuations fail to meet the criteria in international humanitarian law (IHL) that would bring the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza within the lawful evacuation exemption for civilian security.[124]

The UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem and Israel, noted in its report of June 10, 2024, that “although ISF [Israeli Security Forces] did not use the specific term ‘safe zones’ in relation to the evacuation areas, it did advise civilians to move to these areas ‘for their safety,’ thereby effectively designating these as safe zones with the guarantee of safety for the civilians.”[125]

Interviewees told Human Rights Watch that they and people around them were attacked in areas not subject to evacuation orders and on evacuation routes such as the Salah al-Din Road, the main highway that runs between the north and south of Gaza. Survivors of these journeys then said they came under attack in areas that evacuation orders had directed people to flee to. Even if some or all of these attacks might have been lawful under IHL, they demonstrate Israel’s failure to ensure safe evacuations. Overall, these evacuation directives resulted in more fear and an egregiously unsafe forced displacement, than to ensure a temporary evacuation in line with humanitarian principles.

Amina received the October 13 general evacuation order to northern governorates to leave for the south of Gaza. She said she chose that day to go to Khan Younis as she believed it was far away from the north and would be safe:

My older brother took me and my family from our house to Khan Younis. On the road there were thousands of people. We took the Salah al-Din Road. It is the road that connects our area [in Rimal] to what they called safe areas, but it wasn’t safe and the roads also were not safe. When I passed the truck that had been transporting people to Khan Younis, I saw that it had already been attacked. The fire had been put out and there was a pile of five other affected cars [which had been on fire]. This caused a lot of traffic, the bodies of people who died in the bombing were piled on one side of the road and they were loading them into cars: I will never forget that sight in all my life.[126]

Using the Salah al-Din Road

The Salah al-Din Road is the main highway that runs north-south through Gaza. It extends over 45 kilometers, spanning the entire length of the territory from the Erez Crossing with Israel in the north to the southern Rafah Crossing with Egypt. The Israeli military has consistently designated this major thoroughfare as a “safe passage” for people fleeing from the north to the south as they were instructed to do by evacuation orders.[127]

Investigations by media outlets,[128] previous reporting by Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights Watch interviews with Palestinians in Gaza together with analysis and verification of videos, photographs, and satellite imagery demonstrate that this route was rarely if ever safe, including the side roads and access routes that people had to use in order to reach the Salah al-Din Road. An al-Monitor article described it as the “passage of death.”[129]

On September 9, 2024, UNOSAT, the United Nations Satellite Centre, released a satellite-based comprehensive damage assessment of the state of road network in Gaza based on an image recorded on August 18. The assessment reveals that 68 percent of the road network in Gaza has been damaged, including Salah al-Din Road and the other main safe-passage route, al-Rashid coastal road, which roughly parallels Salah al-Din Road to the west. As of August 18, 37 kilometers, more than 80 percent, of Salah al-Din Road appears damaged.[130]

In nearly all instances investigated, Israeli orders to evacuate via Salah al-Din Road provided a time window of less than two hours to evacuate, were vague, inconsistent, and were contradicted by the reality on the ground. For example, evacuation leaflets airdropped on October 13 provided no time frames in which residents could use the Salah al-Din Road as a safe and designated route to evacuate. On the same day at 6:03 p.m., the Israeli military posted on its X account that residents had until 8 p.m. to use the Salah al-Din Road, meaning residents had less than two hours in which to access the information online, – if they had access at all, given the power and network outages described in the previous section of this report – make their escape plans, and carry them out.[131]

Over the following month, orders were issued to Palestinians that gave different time frames in which to use the road, such as between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on October 14, 2023,[132] 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on October 15, 2023,[133] 8:00 a.m. and 12 p.m. on October 16, 2023,[134] 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on November 5, 2023,[135] then again from 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on November 9, 2023,[136] and 9:00 a.m. and 4 p.m. on November 14, 2023.[137] These timeframes were unrealistic, given the conditions on the ground as many interviewees described their journey along the Salah al-Din Road taking far longer than usual due to traffic congestion caused by the sudden mass movement of people, residents forced to walk due to other transportation means being inaccessible, and newly established checkpoints.

Rami, a 34-year-old-man living in Jabalia with his wife and three children, said he and his family left their home on October 13, 2023, after receiving automated telephone calls from the Israelis to leave the area in which their home was located and head south immediately.[138] “The dark irony is that they were bombing the area since October 7,” he said, “and after a whole week of that [the Israeli military] told us to leave.”[139] He described the Salah al-Din Road journey:

We were not attacked directly, but many bombs were dropped in spots behind us and very close to us; one of them was less than 100 meters away. We could hear the airstrikes all the time. The Salah al-Din Road usually takes one hour but it took us three hours because of the traffic.

People were walking in the middle of the road and there were many burning cars and houses on the sides of the road. I took another [stranded] family from the road with us in my car, I wish I could have done more.[140]

Interviewees said the situation on the ground was chaotic, and people with disabilities, children, and older people were moving among the large groups of displaced people.

The pervasive fear of being caught up in Israeli airstrikes persisted, underscoring the grave risks associated with the evacuation. Youssef, a 30-year-old man, said that his family sought refuge in a school in al-Shati (“Beach”) refugee camp after an Israeli airstrike hit in front of his house on October 9.[141] He fled the area with his heavily pregnant wife and two children on November 9 after Israeli bombardments struck increasingly close to the school:

The night we decided to leave, we were hit by different missiles… [near] the school. Everyone left the school that day. A lot of places surrounding the school were hit and the school was damaged.

It took us five hours on foot [to get to the South]. We had to hold white flags from our place in the school to al-Shifa and then to al-Remal Street and then to the Salah al-Din Road. We walked with a lot of injured people. The bombings were happening around us and I saw people injured on the way.[142]

As the war progressed, and the Israeli ground invasion advanced into Gaza, Israeli armored military vehicles reached this crucial road by the end of October and installed checkpoints demarcating the front line and establishing a dividing line between the north and the south.[143] A video, shared by the Israeli military on November 9, 2023, shows hundreds of people walking on the Salah al-Din Road waving white flags. Many of them are shown walking with both arms up in the air and passing an Israeli armored vehicle.[144] BBC Verify geolocated this video and found the armored vehicle in the same position on satellite imagery captured on November 7, 2023.[145]

Several interviewees spoke of degrading treatment at checkpoints along the Salah al-Din Road as they evacuated per the Israeli authorities’ instructions. Leila, a 40-year-old woman from al-Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City who uses a wheelchair, described her humiliating treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint at al-Kuwait roundabout, where she and her family were attempting to access the Salah al-Din Road:

We were searched and humiliated at the roundabout and the Israelis were talking and insulting us with terrible words. The Israeli soldiers used words and insults to hurt us, including shouting “Walk you donkeys!” They used this word all the time and at everyone passing through the checkpoint. The Israeli soldiers asked me to show my identity card when I passed and even though he saw me in a wheelchair, they stopped me. I was tormented until I reached the last checkpoint.[146]

Leila received an evacuation order via an airdropped leaflet from the Israeli authorities on November 8, 2023. It instructed the residents of al-Zeitoun neighborhood to leave between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m.[147] Leila explained that she could not flee immediately. On November 9, 2023, Leila said her building was targeted in an Israeli airstrike which badly damaged the third floor of her building.[148] She explained that everyone on the third and second floors took refuge on the first floor and waited till the following day to flee. “On that day between eight and nine people were injured – mostly children – from shrapnel and many people were injured mentally,” she said.[149]

As she huddled in a room, Leila said the blasts had contaminated the air and she breathed in something “very aggressive that led to a chest infection.”[150]

Leila started her journey when there was a pause in the bombardments on November 10, 2023. She said she saw an Israeli soldier firing on her group as they tried to reach the road:

We escaped at 6:00 a.m. As soon as we left the house, an Israeli sniper started shooting at us from between the houses, quickly and it was terrifying. I saw the sniper with my eyes firing at us.[151]

Leila eventually made it to Rafah where she was living in a tent with 15 other family members at the time of our interview.

Saleem, a 29-year-old man who was living in Nuseirat, an area south of Wadi Gaza, before the hostilities broke out, said he was taking care of his 14 brothers during the hostilities. He said he received automated calls from the Israeli authorities to leave the area, but these came after an Israeli airstrike hit his neighbor’s house, which caused damage to his house and injured one of his brothers:

We left on foot because we did not have a car. The roads were not safe. There was an Israeli bombing nearby, which we luckily survived. One bomb that did not explode fell less than 30 meters from me and my brothers. We walked the whole road from al-Nuseirat to Alkiam in Deir al-Balah.[152]

Saleem now lives in a tent in Deir al-Balah, struggling to survive and provide for his 14 younger brothers.

As Israeli ground operations intensified, tanks and armored vehicles were reported in the north. Families fleeing from heavily hit areas had to navigate past Israeli tanks.[153] Adding to the ordeal, displaced people had to walk significantly longer and more difficult distances because of damaged roads.

On December 11, 2023, the Israeli military called on Palestinian residents who remained north of Wadi Gaza to leave southwards through a “corridor” along Salah al-Din Road between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. However, this stretch of the road running north and east of Khan Younis City reportedly experienced intense battles at this time, making movement hazardous and difficult.[154]

Salah al-Din Road was closed to civilians on January 4, 2024, and al-Rashid coastal road was designated as a safe passage route instead. 

In such circumstances, Israeli forces could have taken steps, if there was time, to tell Palestinians not to use that route for evacuations, and provided a safe alternative route, and/or delayed plans to attack the areas civilians were to be evacuated from.

Media Coverage of Killings of Palestinians on the Move

Media reports included description of Israeli attacks on evacuation convoys and evidence of what appeared to be extrajudicial killings of women, men, and children attempting to evacuate.

On October 13, 2023, MSNBC News reported that 70 people, mostly women and children, were killed as they evacuated in three convoys, citing the Gaza Ministry of Health and interviews.[155]

A video posted to social media on November 3, 2023 that was verified by Reuters and corroborated by Human Rights Watch, showed the bodies of at least seven people, including at least one child, lying on al-Rashid coastal road south of Gaza City, one of the two main roads considered as an evacuation route as described in the previous section, which was under attack by Israeli forces.[156]

Middle East Eye received and verified footage showing 57-year-old Hala Khreis being shot and killed on November 12, 2023 by an Israeli gunman as she was holding the hand of her 5-year-old grandson, who was waving a white flag in his other hand.[157] The ICRC said that her group had been ordered to evacuate their northern Gaza home and was taking an evacuation route that had been “cleared” by the Israeli military.[158]

ITV News published footage filmed by one of its camera operators on January 22, 2024 outside al-Aqsa University in al-Mawasi. It shows five men with their hands in the air, one of whom is holding a white flag.[159] The camera operator interviews one of the men, Ramzi Abu Sahloul, who explains that they are trying to reach his mother and brother. He says that the Israeli military did not allow his brother to evacuate. The camera operator leaves and the group comes under fire; Abu Sahloul is shot dead. NBC News investigated and verified the incident.[160] Its report included a statement from Ahmed Hijazi, a Palestinian videographer, who said the bullets came from one of the nearby Israeli tanks.[161] Forensic Architecture documented the movement of tanks near the university at the time of incident. Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss confirmed to ABC News that his troops fired the shots and confirmed that the incident was being investigated.[162]

The investigation’s findings have not been published at the time of writing this report. Human Rights Watch confirmed that the university building was located within al-Mawasi humanitarian zone – the boundaries of which the Israeli military had set on December 6, 2023. A day after the incident, on January 23, 2024, an evacuation order instructed residents of Khan Younis neighborhoods to move to this area.[163]

On January 29, 2024, two brothers who were holding white flags were reportedly shot and killed by an Israeli military sniper while trying to flee Khan Younis in the south of Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification agency investigated the incident and verified footage provided by the family of the two brothers dead in the street.[164]

Evacuation Areas

On November 10, 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel was not seeking to displace anyone, but added that “[Israel is] trying to…get the Gazans in the northern part of the Gaza Strip where the fighting has taken place to move one to four miles south where we have established a safe zone.”[165] Prime Minister Netanyahu went on to say, “We want to see field hospitals. We’re encouraging and enabling humanitarian help to go there.”[166]

A November 16, 2023 statement from the heads of 18 of the world’s major UN and related humanitarian agencies outlined the minimal conditions for a safe zone:

• The agreement of the parties to refrain from hostilities in and around the zone and to respect its civilian character.
• Provision of the essentials for survival, including food, water, shelter, hygiene, health assistance, and safety.
• Allowing displaced people to move freely and voluntarily return to their residences as soon as possible.[167]

The statement went on to say, “Failure to meet these basic conditions may constitute a breach of international humanitarian and human rights law.”[168]

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. Interviewees consistently told Human Rights Watch that “evacuation areas” designated by the Israel authorities came under attack from the Israeli military.[169] They also recounted how they were unable to meet basic humanitarian needs.

In early December 2023, James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Cairo that safe zones in Gaza, “are not possible,” adding, “I think the authorities are aware of this.”[170] He said, “It’s a safe zone when you can guarantee the conditions of food, water, medicine, and shelter. I’ve seen for myself these are entirely, entirely absent.”[171]

All those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were forced to flee multiple times, as evacuation orders proliferated across Gaza. According to the UN, as of October 2024 the total area covered by evacuation orders in Gaza, excluding those that have been revoked, constitutes about 84 per cent of Gaza.[172] The Israeli military forced civilians to move into smaller and smaller areas, “for their safety.” The areas frequently changed, shifted, and became battle zones from which people were forced to flee again.

The majority of Palestinians in Gaza took shelter in Rafah until May 6, when the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders[173] for Rafah’s eastern neighborhoods and told people to seek refuge in the “expanded humanitarian area”[174] in al-Mawasi encompassing neighborhoods in Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and Rafah governates.

By late May 2024, the UN said that about one million Palestinians had been displaced from Rafah since Israel launched its offensive.[175] Interviewees uniformly told Human Rights Watch they felt nowhere is safe inside Gaza.

Since the early days of the war, UN agencies, UN experts, and humanitarian agencies have declared in the most powerful terms that nowhere in Gaza is safe. On January 5, 2024, Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator said:

Gaza has become a place of death and despair… Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety. For children, in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic. No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out. Gaza has simply become uninhabitable.[176]

On April 26, an NBC News investigation into seven deadly airstrikes found Palestinians were killed in areas of southern Gaza “that the Israeli military had explicitly designated as safe zones.”[177]

On May 24, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued, for the third time, provisional measures as part of South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention of 1948. As part of its order, the Court specifically noted that:

On the basis of the information before it, the Court is not convinced that the evacuation efforts and related measures that Israel affirms to have undertaken to enhance the security of civilians in Gaza, and in particular those recently displaced from the Rafah Governorate, are sufficient to alleviate the immense risk to which the Palestinian population is exposed as a result of the military offensive in Rafah.[178]

On August 22, Muhannad Hadi, the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, recalled that “During August alone, the Israeli forces have issued 12 evacuation orders – on average, once every two days – forcing as many as 250,000 people to move yet again” and concluded that:

If evacuation orders are meant to protect civilians, the fact is that they are leading to the exact opposite. They are forcing families to flee again, often under fire and with the few belongings they can carry with them, into an ever-shrinking area that is overcrowded, polluted, with limited services and – like the rest of Gaza – unsafe. People are being deprived of access to services essential for their survival, including medical facilities, shelters, water wells and humanitarian supplies.[179]

On August 26, UN aid operations in Gaza were forced to stop after the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for Deir al-Balah in central Gaza where the UN operations center is located.[180] The evacuation order came as the UN prepared to begin a campaign to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the WHO said a 10-month-old baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus,[181] the first such case in the territory in 25 years.[182]

Khan Younis

At the outset of the war, the Israeli military issued evacuation orders telling people to go south. In certain cases, the orders told people to seek safety in Khan Younis.[183] While Khan Younis was initially designated as an evacuation area, Gaza’s second largest city experienced a high level of Israeli attacks and fatalities from the early days of the conflict, as demonstrated from OCHA’s Flash Updates[184] and Airwars, an NGO that investigates civilian harm in conflict zones.[185]

Dr. Hassan, a 49-year-old-man, married with seven children, who was living in Izbat Abed Rabo near Jabalia in northern Gaza before the war, described how he fled his home with his family in just their pajamas after receiving automated calls from the Israelis to leave immediately for the south of Gaza.[186] They fled to Khan Younis to a relative’s house where 36 people were living in a space of 100 square meters:

Two days before the ceasefire [in late November 2023], there were attacks on the municipality in al-Qarara, which is less than one kilometer from where we are [in my area of displacement]. I know the attacks were very close – we have a heavy iron door and it was damaged from the attacks.

There are a lot of attacks in the [displacement] area and I do not think it is safe here. A lot of areas next to ours have been asked to evacuate – al-Qarara, Alzana, Absan, and Alkzaa. The area I am in had an evacuation order before I arrived, but we have not been asked to evacuate again. I hope the area stays safe because I don’t know where we would go.[187]

Hisham, a 34-year-old video journalist with two children who was living in North Rimal Street in Gaza City when the war broke out, described how he had to flee his building when he received a notification to leave through one of his neighbors:

The [automated Israeli military] calls don’t come to each and every family. They go to neighbors and usually say that the person should tell others. It was such a mess. Most people were terrified, screaming. It was hectic. The [warning to leave] call went to our neighbors. These are automated calls – saying you have to evacuate because the area is considered a war zone. Usually you get a few days, but two days after we received the warning [from the neighbors] the targeting of the area started.[188]

Hisham first sought refuge with his family at a friend’s home next to al-Shifa Hospital. He was forced to flee this area when he said a neighbor’s house was hit in an Israeli airstrike.[189] He said a neighbor had received an automated call from the Israeli military instructing them to leave, but the attack happened only five minutes later.[190] Hisham and his family survived the attack. “The pressure of the bomb caused damage [to his friend’s home] and people were injured from shrapnel.…It was 2 a.m. At sunrise, we decided [my family] needed to separate and try to get to a safe place,” he said.[191]

Hisham decided to move further south to Khan Younis where he stayed until the end of October 2023. In November 2023, he was forced to flee once again as the Israeli military operation progressed towards the south of Gaza:

The Israelis said Khan Younis was a safe place. It was a farming area – there was no reason to attack the area. But they started bombing this area and the farms. I took a decision to leave and go to Rafah… The emotional state of the kids – what they witnessed in the last area, they are in shock, they are terrified. They jump at small sounds now. It was so hard for me to get my family from the last place to here. Most of the areas were closed by the Israelis as they were considered battle areas.[192]

The Israeli military began ground operations around Khan Younis in southern Gaza in December 2023. Israeli tanks cut off the road between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, effectively dividing Gaza into three parts.[193] The campaign in Khan Younis involved both bombardments of suspected Hamas targets and a ground offensive, leading to significant casualties and damage to infrastructure. The city, which had swelled with displaced individuals seeking refuge, found itself at the heart of some of the most intense fighting witnessed since the conflict's onset in October.

Throughout this period, international observers and humanitarian organizations expressed concern over the escalating violence and its impact on the civilian population, highlighting the dire humanitarian situation in Khan Younis and broader Gaza.

On December 1, 2023, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for eastern neighborhoods in Khan Younis but at the same time declared the whole area a “combat zone.”[194] This confusing articulation left people living outside of the eastern neighborhoods unsure how to respond. Declaring an area a combat zone without the concomitant instructions of where and how to evacuate does not constitute an evacuation order.

Rashad, a 31-year-old-man living in Khan Younis, explained how his home had become a shelter for scores of displaced people: “I live with my mother, father, brother, wife, and two kids but now we have 80 displaced people living with us.”[195] He said there were 25 children under the age of seven living in his home.[196]

Human Rights Watch spoke to Rashad on December 1, just as he received an Israeli evacuation order warning that Khan Younis was considered a combat zone:

The Israeli evacuation leaflet says the whole area of Khan Younis is considered a combat zone. Then it says it is a “formal warning.” I am unwilling to go anywhere. Wherever we go will change again. We were told [by the Israeli military] to go to Khan Younis and now they are saying this isn’t safe, and to move to Rafah. There is no other place to go in the shelters in Rafah. And today there were civilian houses hit in Rafah and 30 causalities and this area is not safe for anybody.[197]

Rashad told Human Rights Watch that he was responsible for his family and other IDPs who were depending on him. Human Rights Watch could not reach Rashad again to find out if he and his household of IDPs managed to leave Khan Younis.

As the Israeli military offensive encircled Khan Younis, where it says many Hamas leaders were based, people sought refuge further south and crowded into Rafah. Israeli military attacks in Khan Younis included strikes on hospitals and UN facilities where thousands of displaced people from the north had been sheltering.[198]

Sara: A Case Study

Sara, a 37-year-old psychologist with three children, was living in Khan Younis with her family when the war broke out. She opened her apartment to displaced relatives from Gaza City, so 20 people were living there on December 7, 2023, when her residential building was damaged in an Israeli airstrike that destroyed her relatives’ home, less than 10 meters away.[199] Both buildings were in an area, block 108, that had not been marked for evacuation on the online Israeli military map, so presumably were not considered to be dangerous.[200] Sara said she went to work as normal that day but returned home to a scene of carnage:

It was 4 p.m., and I was coming back from my job. This is when I saw the fire and the destruction, and there were people under the rubble [of my relatives’ home]...

What I saw was a massacre. I arrived and it was hectic – everyone was screaming. I was scared because my kids were in my house [less than 10 meters away]. There was so much damage to my relatives’ building. This stopped me entering properly into it. A lot of people were injured. Big, massive, injuries, the cousin of my husband was burned in her face and disfigured and the kids were either injured or killed that day. My family in my apartment were thank God okay. But we saw the bodies [in my relatives’ building], and people under the rubble, the emotional state of the kids was so bad. It changed us all.[201]

Sara said she had nowhere to go immediately after her home was damaged, so she left the next day and found shelter in an UNWRA school in Khan Younis with 8,000 to 9,000 other displaced people.[202] Human Rights Watch spoke with Sara again on February 19, 2024. “Thank God we are still alive,” she said, explaining that she and her family had been forced to flee again, this time to Rafah after the Israeli offensive in Khan Younis.[203] “Now we are sitting in tents in the extreme cold. My children are sick and our condition is bad. All necessities of life are lacking. And we are left with nothing,” she said.[204]

Human Rights Watch analyzed six photographs posted online and a video taken by Agence France-Presse, geolocating the attack that destroyed Sara’s relatives’ building and heavily damaged those adjacent in the same blast – including the building where Sara and her family were living – by comparing landmarks in the photographs and videos with satellite imagery captured before and after the attack. By analyzing online evacuation orders and photographs of airdropped leaflets posted online, Human Rights Watch established that block 108 was not slated for evacuation until January 23, 2024, six-and-a-half weeks later.[205]

A satellite image from December 7, 2023 at 12:09 p.m. local time displays no indications of damage to the building; an image captured on December 8, 2023, at 10:16 a.m. local time confirms the complete destruction of Sara’s relatives’ building and severe damage to her building and to many nearby structures. The title card of the Agence France-Presse video states it was recorded on December 7, 2023 and shows civilians recovering two injured women and one body from Sara’s relatives’ destroyed building. An additional two more strikes are visible in the same timeframe on satellite imagery, occurring just dozens of meters from the attack that destroyed Sara’s relatives’ home and severely damaged hers.

The December 7 attack was not an isolated event to affect Block 108; this area was subjected to multiple attacks prior to that date. Human Rights Watch identified at least six additional strikes, before the attack on December 7, some likely involving large airdropped munitions as evidenced by satellite imagery.

Despite the recurrent attacks, block 108 was not designated for evacuation until January 23, 2024.[206] Notably, several schools, including Sheikh Jaber UNRWA School, are located within block 108. From late October onwards, numerous tents for displaced people were erected within the block’s school compounds. Additionally, a field hospital was established at Nasser Stadium in mid-December 2023, but it was dismantled around January 19, 2024, after only a month of operation.

In the period following the evacuation order issued on January 23, 2024, satellite imagery analysis conducted by Human Rights Watch shows a surge in attacks on the area – apparently from Israeli airstrikes. The first visible impact of ground incursions and demolitions within block 108 appear on satellite imagery on February 3, 2024. A week later, the Israeli military occupied Sheikh Jaber School and Nasser Stadium.

Over 70 percent of residential buildings within the block exhibit heavy damage or have been demolished by mid-February. Demolitions increased until the end of February 2024, including Sara’s house that appears to have been reduced to rubble as seen in satellite imagery and in a video and three photographs sent directly to Human Rights Watch.

Al-Mawasi

In October 2023, Israel designated an area in al-Mawasi – a Palestinian Bedouin town on the southern coast of Gaza – a “humanitarian zone.”[207] According to the UN, the area is approximately one kilometer wide and fourteen kilometers long and is mostly barren and sandy.[208] There is no running water in al-Mawasi.

Since designating al-Mawasi a “humanitarian zone” the Israeli military has defined different boundaries for the area on at least fourteen different occasions on its various communications channels.[209] On April 28, 2024, the area was expanded eastward to the Salah al-Din Road and northward to include most of Deir al-Balah.[210] From July 22, 2024 onwards, claiming that the eastern part of al-Mawasi was used to launch rockets towards Israel, the Israeli military reduced the size of the humanitarian zone and urged people in the area eliminated to move to areas within the reduced zone.[211] Between July 22 and August 25, the Israeli military redefined and reduced the size of the boundaries of the “humanitarian zone” at least six times. It also redesignated at least 43 blocks within it as combat zones.[212]

Israeli airstrikes and bombardments hit al-Mawasi humanitarian zone, as they hit other designated evacuation areas.

On January 4, 2024, Save the Children, an international NGO, issued a press statement stating:

Fourteen people, the majority of them children under 10 years old, were reportedly[213] killed by Israeli airstrikes near al-Mawasi this morning, an area designated a “humanitarian area”[214] by Israeli authorities, to which Israeli forces ordered civilians to evacuate for their safety.[215]

The statement reiterated that there was nowhere safe in Gaza:

Israeli forces have issued multiple so-called “evacuation orders” since 7 October, primarily directing civilians to three areas in the south—Khan Younis, Rafah and Al-Mawasi. All three have been subsequently hit by Israeli airstrikes, with civilians, including children, killed, and injured.[216]

Jason Lee, Save the Children’s Country Director of Occupied Palestinian Territory, concluded:

I cannot stress this enough: there is nowhere safe in Gaza. But under International Humanitarian Law, there should be. Camps, shelters, schools, hospitals, homes and so-called “safe zones” should not be battlegrounds. Yet Gaza has been laid to waste.

These relocation orders offer nothing more than a smokescreen of safety. If people stay, they are killed. If they move, they are killed. People are facing the “choice” of one death sentence or another.[217]

Various media outlets covered the January 4 airstrike. It hit displaced Palestinians taking refuge in a house and tents in al-Mawasi. The attack killed 16 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry,[218] although other sources reported the number to be 14 and 17.[219] Human Rights Watch verified three videos and four photographs collected from news outlets and published on January 4, 2024, showing the aftermath of the strike and featuring interviews with witnesses. A 10-meter-diameter crater, consistent with an airdropped munition is visible on a satellite image taken on the morning of January 5. A January 3 image shows no signs of damage. The videos and the photographs geolocated by Human Rights Watch show this large crater along with severe destruction of nearby buildings and structures. The site of the attack falls within the boundary the Israeli military defined for the humanitarian zone on December 6, 2023. Human Rights Watch was not able to independently verify the number of casualties resulting from the attack.

Human Rights Watch also documented an attack carried out by Israeli forces on a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) guest house in al-Mawasi.[220] On February 20, 2024, an Israeli tank fired a medium-to-large caliber weapon at a multi-story apartment building housing only MSF staff and their families in al-Mawasi.[221] The attack killed two people and injured seven, according to a New York Times investigation.[222] In a statement published on its website, MSF said it had provided the coordinates of the building to Israeli authorities and confirmed it neither saw military objects in the area prior to the attack, nor did it receive a warning that an attack was imminent from the Israeli military.[223] Human Rights Watch reviewed photographs and videos taken by Sky News and MSF and confirmed that a large MSF flag was draped on the outside of the building at the time of the attack. Researchers also verified a photograph MSF posted on X on February 22, showing damage to the exterior of the building. The ground photographs and satellite imagery show that the MSF building was secluded and that the nearest buildings were approximately 50 meters away. Israeli authorities confirmed to Sky News that they had received the coordinates, and explained that the army fired on the building because it had been “identified as a building where terror activity is occurring.”[224] The Israeli military said it would conduct its own examination of the attack.[225] At the time of writing, no results have been made public.

Human Rights Watch verified and analyzed additional attacks on areas where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the area of al-Mawasi humanitarian zone defined on October 18. On March 10, 2024, Israeli military attacked displaced families sheltering in al-Mawasi.[226] The attacks struck a farm owned by Ziad Abdel Ghafour used as a shelter by families and killed 15 civilians including two people with disabilities and four children, according to a video interview with Ghafour published to YouTube by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.[227] Human Rights Watch analyzed and geolocated four videos published by news outlets and collected from social media platforms which captured the aftermath of the attack. These showed the interior and exterior of severely damaged tents which had been sheltering people.[228] The videos show the front of a heavily damaged large tent that can accommodate several people, and two other tents with signs of fragmentation damage to its canvas. People’s belongings lay scattered, and blood stains are visible on pillows and mats inside one of the tents. Satellite imagery analysis confirmed that the attack took place between March 9 at 10:40 a.m. local time and March 10 at 10:39 a.m. local time. Additionally, in the area adjacent to these large tents, several impacts craters are visible where smaller tents once stood. Human Rights Watch geolocated three videos posted on social media and by media outlets on March 10 showing people sorting through and packing their belongings amid destroyed tents and remains of burned objects in the aftermath of the attack. Human Rights Watch was unable to independently verify the number of casualties resulting from the attacks. When the attack on the farm took place, it no longer fell within the defined area of al-Mawasi humanitarian zone according to the boundaries set on December 6 – the closest date to the attack. It was, however, clearly within the humanitarian zone on October 18. Human Rights Watch could find no communication from the Israeli authorities through any medium directing people to evacuate from those areas within the humanitarian zone on October 18 that were excluded on December 6.

On April 20, 2024, the Israeli military attacked tents sheltering displaced people inside the boundaries of al-Mawasi humanitarian zone. Human Rights Watch analyzed and geolocated a video posted to X by Al Jazeera Palestine showing a large smoke plume, and four additional photographs of the aftermath of the attack posted to social media on April 20. By reviewing available satellite imagery and analyzing shadows visible in the video, Human Rights Watch determined that the attack was carried out on April 20 between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. within the humanitarian zone boundary established by the Israeli military on December 6, the boundaries in effect at that time, according to public communications of the boundaries by the Israeli authorities.[229] A satellite image taken on April 21 shows significant damage to tents, nearby greenhouses, and other structures at the site. There is no visible damage in a satellite image collected on the morning of April 20.

Human Rights Watch interviewees also described further attacks in al-Mawasi which they said were carried out by the Israeli military.

After escaping Khan Younis with his family, Hisham sought refuge in al-Mawasi in a small tent near the beach. He said an Israeli airstrike hit a building near the ICRC office approximately 300 meters from his tent on January 8, 2024.[230]

After four rounds of displacements between Khan Younis and rural Rafah, Asma, a 32-year-old woman with four children who was originally living in Beit Lahiya in the north of Gaza, eventually sought refuge in al-Mawasi. Living in a 20 x 20-meter tent with 20 members of her family, she described daily airstrikes. “Yesterday, it was 200 meters from us…We keep hearing the Israeli air forces all the time in the sky above us,” she said.[231] Asma finished the interview saying, “We live in a disaster, and we are hopeless, starving, and besieged.”[232]

Rafah

Israeli evacuation orders predominantly instructed Palestinians to go to south of Wadi Gaza to seek shelter and safety, at times specifying Rafah, situated on the southern edge of Gaza, or known shelters in the neighborhoods of Rafah.[233] Most interviewees told Human Rights Watch they eventually sought refuge in Rafah governorate after multiple displacements, including inside Rafah itself. They described the terrifying situation they were experiencing as they were being interviewed: hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in cramped, crowded, and unsanitary conditions, either crammed inside apartment buildings, public facilities or United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools, or in flimsy tented settlements along the beach front, and in farmlands.

The majority of Palestinians in Gaza were sheltering in Rafah until early May, when the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for Rafah’s eastern neighborhoods and told people to seek refuge in the expanded humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi. By May 29, the UN reported that around one million Palestinians had been displaced from Rafah since Israel launched its offensive in the area on May 6.[234]

On May 6, the Israeli military ordered all eastern Rafah neighborhoods to evacuate “immediately” and seek shelter in the al-Mawasi area of the governorate – an area that humanitarian organizations stated was not equipped to accommodate more displaced people.[235] The Israeli military started airstrikes on eastern Rafah that same day.[236]

Every interviewee Human Rights Watch spoke to said they did not feel safe in Rafah.

After fleeing Jabalia in the north, Ziad described having to move with his family several times inside Rafah governorate because of Israeli airstrikes in the area:

The Israelis say Rafah is safe. The building I’m staying in is on Brazil street. The house in front of my building and behind it have been attacked. My family members were injured because of the shrapnel. I have family members who have lost their life in Rafah – it is a joke that Rafah is safe.[237]

Farah, a 38-year-old woman, married with three children, was living in Shaboura, a neighborhood of Rafah, when the war broke out. She said she had not sought refuge elsewhere, explaining that Israeli authorities had generally told people to go to Rafah for their safety.[238] At the time of interview, Farah was hosting 70 members of her and her husband’s extended family in her two-bedroom house, who had been displaced from other areas in Gaza. She explained there was not enough room to house so many people in such a small space and people had to take turns to sleep. Farah said there had been Israeli bombardments “200 to 250 meters from her home.”[239] On February 12, 2024, the Israeli military said it had struck a number of “terror targets” in the Shaboura district of Rafah and the strikes had concluded.[240] Various media outlets reported scores of fatalities.

In a predawn operation on February 12, the Israeli military rescued two Israeli hostages from a building in Rafah, during a military operation that reportedly killed about 100 Palestinians.[241] Hisham spoke to Human Rights Watch about the impact of the hostage rescue operation on him:

They used ground troops and drones, airstrikes, and special forces. The situation was really hard, all the attacks were above our heads: the F16 was hitting, the Apache was hitting, bombs from everywhere surrounding us and we were in our tents. It was the most difficult three hours that we experienced since the war started. It was strong and terrifying…so I decided that night that I need to move my family from the area. The next day, I packed all my stuff and my tent and I went back up to the north to al-Zawayda town, near where I'm from originally, near Gaza City.[242]

In late May, Israeli air strikes hit areas west of Rafah, where the military had not ordered civilians to evacuate. Israeli ground troops and tanks had been operating in eastern Rafah, in central parts of the city, and along the Gaza-Egypt border.[243]

According to a report by Amnesty International:

On May 26 two Israeli airstrikes on the Kuwaiti Peace Camp, a makeshift camp for displaced people in Tal al-Sultan in west Rafah, killed at least 36 people – including six children – and injured more than 100. The attacks were followed by a fire. At least four of those killed were fighters as the airstrike targeted two Hamas commanders staying amid displaced civilians.

In a second incident on May 28, the Israeli military fired at least three tank shells at a location in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah. The attacks killed 23 civilians – including twelve children, seven women, and four men – and injured many more…the apparent targets of the attack were one Hamas and one Islamic Jihad fighter.[244]

The Amnesty report concluded that Israeli forces failed to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians in May attacks on the Kuwaiti Peace Camp and al-Mawasi and that both attacks should be investigated as war crimes.[245]

At the time of writing, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt remains closed, since Israeli forces seized control of it during military operations on May 6, effectively cauterizing the main route for aid operations and evacuations of those needing immediate and urgent medical attention.[246]

Allegations of Hamas Preventing People from Fleeing

On October 2023, Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Eyad Al-Bozom said at a news conference, “We tell the people of northern Gaza and from Gaza City, stay put in your homes, and your places.”[247] On the same day, the Hamas authority for refugee affairs reportedly told residents in northern Gaza to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation.”[248]

The Israeli military released audio of a Palestinian man claiming that Hamas was blocking people from leaving northern Gaza, as ongoing Israeli strikes targeted the area.[249] Human Rights Watch could not verify the authenticity of the audio recording, nor the circumstances under which the man made the statement.

Further, Israeli media reports suggested that Hamas set up roadblocks on Gaza’s main routes, effectively hindering civilians from reaching safer areas in the south of Gaza.[250] These reports also allege that blocking people from fleeing was part of broader efforts by Hamas to use civilians as “human shields.”[251] An Israeli military official also indicated that Hamas had placed obstacles to prevent evacuations and had tried to attribute an explosive incident on an evacuation route to Israel, which Israel denied.[252]

In its June 10, 2024 report to the UN Human Rights Council, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said that it “documented several reports indicating that evacuation processes were also hindered by Hamas threats, setting up roadblocks to block evacuations and attacks against those that wanted to leave… The Commission therefore concludes on reasonable grounds that Hamas has made attempts to discourage and potentially obstruct the evacuation of civilians.”[253]

Human Rights Watch asked each of the 39 people it interviewed in private and confidential interviews if Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups had obstructed them from fleeing and none said that that had happened to them, but it is possible under the circumstances that some interviewees may not have felt comfortable discussing Hamas military operations with Human Rights Watch.

The massive, ongoing scale of Israeli attacks in Gaza might indicate that if Palestinian armed groups or members of Hamas attempted to maintain roadblocks for any length of time, they would likely have been targeted. In this scenario, it may be unlikely that efforts to block Palestinians from following evacuation orders would have stopped many people from fleeing for more than brief periods.

All parties to conflicts must, take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population under their control from the effects of attacks, including allowing civilians to leave areas. They must, to the extent feasible, remove civilian persons under their control from the vicinity of military objectives.[254] Intentionally using the presence or movement of civilians to attempt to make certain areas or military forces immune from military operations would amount to human shielding.[255] Therefore, any efforts by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups to prevent civilians from fleeing would amount to the war crime of human shielding if carried out to force civilians to remain in proximity to military targets in order to deter attacks on those targets.

Even if Hamas did obstruct some Palestinians in Gaza from accessing evacuation areas or prevented them from leaving their homes or areas, this would not absolve Israel from its obligation not to engage in forced displacement.

 

Israel’s Failure to Provide for the Displaced

Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home.[256]

― Israel Katz, then-Minister of Energy, now Minister of Defense, October 12, 2023

Under article 49 of the Geneva Convention, a lawful evacuation of the protected population should adhere to humanitarian standards:

The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated.[257]

Israel is responsible for ensuring that the humanitarian needs of displaced people are met. The ICRC commentary expands on this section of article 49:

It represents a very strong recommendation to the Occupying Power… If…it is not possible to return the evacuated persons to their homes within a comparatively short period, it will be the duty of the Occupying Power to provide them with suitable accommodation and make proper feeding and sanitary arrangements.[258]

Israel has made no meaningful efforts to comply with these protections and has in fact taken steps to, and publicly declared its intention to make unavailable and inaccessible goods and services essential to the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza through its attacking of civilian infrastructure and restrictions on aid.[259]

In response to the October 7 attacks, Israeli authorities have cut off rights-essential public services, including water and electricity, to Gaza’s population – including displaced Palestinians – and blocked the entry of all but a trickle of fuel and critical humanitarian aid.[260] Acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes and are ongoing at the time of writing.

On October 13, 2023, Israel announced that all residents of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, around 1.1 million people, must evacuate south of Wadi Gaza. That same day, Israel Katz, then-Minister of Energy, stated on social media that Israel will not provide “an ounce of water and electricity to those who remain.”[261] In fact, hardly an ounce was available to the evacuees who did leave.

Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid.[262] Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, as well as the registry of the population.[263] This leaves Gaza’s population almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, the internet, and other goods and services essential for the realization of their human rights.

On November 17, 2023, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned of the “immediate possibility” of starvation, highlighting that supplies of food and water were practically non-existent.[264] On December 3, 2023, it reported a “high risk of famine,” indicating that Gaza’s food system was on the brink of collapse.[265] On December 6, 2023, it declared that 48 percent of households in northern Gaza and 38 percent of displaced people in southern Gaza had experienced “severe levels of hunger.”[266] On July 9, 2024, UN experts, including the special rapporteur on the right to food, stated that the “recent deaths of more Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition leaves no doubt that famine has spread across the entire Gaza strip.”[267]

Impact on Agricultural Sector, Food Insecurity

Israel’s military actions, whether targeting military objectives or not, have had a devastating impact on Gaza’s agricultural sector and food security. On November 16, 2023, UN experts said that the destruction of half of the Gaza’s civilian infrastructure “threatens to make the continuation of Palestinian life in Gaza impossible.”[268] Notably, the Israeli military’s bombing of Gaza’s last operational wheat mill on November 15, 2023 ensured that locally produced flour would be unavailable in Gaza for the foreseeable future.[269] On November 28, 2023, the Palestine Food Security Sector, led by the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization, reported that over a third of agricultural land in the north had been damaged.[270] Additionally, the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said that the decimation of road networks had made it more difficult for humanitarian organizations to deliver food and aid to those who need it.[271]

“Bakeries and grain mills have been destroyed, agriculture, water and sanitation facilities,” Scott Paul, a senior humanitarian policy adviser for Oxfam America, told the Associated Press on November 23, 2023.[272]

The sustained bombardment, coupled with fuel and water shortages, alongside the displacement of more than 1.6 million people to southern Gaza, has made farming nearly impossible.[273] OCHA reported in late November 2023 that livestock in the north were facing starvation due to the shortage of fodder and water, and that crops were increasingly abandoned and damaged due to lack of fuel to pump irrigation water.[274] On November 28, 2023, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said that Gaza is suffering from at least a US$1.6 million daily loss in farm production.[275]

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has warned:

About 1.84 million people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity classified in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) or above, including nearly 133,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5) and 664,000, in IPC Phase 4 (Emergency). About 1.95 million people across the Gaza Strip will likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse) between November 2024 and April 2025, including nearly 345,000 people who will likely experience catastrophic food insecurity (IPC Phase 5). ...The risk of Famine between November 2024 and April 2025 persists as long as conflict continues, and humanitarian access is restricted.[276]

Citing warnings about “catastrophic conditions” in Gaza, on January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian aid.”[277]

Despite this binding order, Israel continued to restrict or block aid, and in March 2024 the ICJ issued a further order, citing that the “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” in particular because of “the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities.”[278]

According to OCHA and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, and medicine dropped by more than a third in the weeks following the January ICJ order.

On April 10, Samantha Power, head of the US humanitarian and development agency, USAID, became the first US official to confirm publicly that reports of famine in at least some parts of Gaza were “credible.”[279]

On April 11, 2024, the Washington Post spoke with 25 aid groups, UN agencies, and donor countries about the kinds of aid they have tried to get into Gaza.[280] It found that “in the six months since the start of the war, Israeli authorities have denied or restricted access to a number of items, ranging from lifesaving medical supplies to toys to chocolate croissants.”[281]

Israel justifies the restrictions according to its interpretation of “dual-use” items, items that are predominantly civilian in nature but could also be used militarily, such as construction materials, communications equipment and chemicals.[282] Israel argues these restrictions are necessary to choke off Hamas’s military apparatus.[283]

Humanitarian agencies have demanded the Israeli military publish a list of dual-use and prohibited items, to provide written notice of its rejections of aid shipments, and to allow for rejections by soldiers on the ground to be appealed, which Israel’s military agency responsible for blocking and arbitrarily rejecting aid, COGAT, has so far refused.[284]

On May 5, Israeli authorities closed the Kerem Shalom crossing after a Hamas rocket attack,[285] and on May 7, Israeli forces seized the Rafah crossing as part of its incursion in the area, thus blocking aid from entering via the primary crossings that had been used before Israel took control of that crossing.

On May 24, the ICJ underlined “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza” and the need for the “unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”[286] It ordered Israel to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”[287]

Prior to October 7, 2023, 500 lorries of humanitarian aid entered Gaza per day.[288] In the first month of the war, only nine lorries a day made it in and in the first ten days of October 2024, only 30 lorries made it in.[289]

Impact on Electricity, Water, Sanitation

Israeli authorities and forces have cut off the water supply piped into Gaza from Israel, cut off the electricity supply from Israel to Gaza that was needed to operate water pumps, desalinization plants, and sanitation infrastructure within Gaza, and blocked and restricted the fuel needed to run generators in the absence of electricity.[290] They have also blocked UN agencies and humanitarian aid organizations from delivering critical water-related materials and other humanitarian aid from entering Gaza; destroyed water infrastructure, including in direct attacks, and have attacked water repair workers.[291]

On December 4, 2023, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings, said that the limited amounts of fuel being allowed in were “utterly insufficient.”[292] On December 6, 2023, Israel’s war cabinet approved a “minimal” increase in fuel supplies to southern Gaza.[293]

On October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities cut the electricity it delivers to Gaza, the main source of electricity there.[294] Israeli authorities also cut fuel necessary to run Gaza’s only power plant. By October 11, 2023, the only power plant in Gaza ran out of fuel reserves.[295] Because of the absence of electricity due to the unavailability of fuel to operate diesel generators, facilities for water and wastewater in Gaza became inoperable. While Israeli authorities later began allowing in some fuel, they have only allowed in a fraction of what is needed to operate Gaza’s critical infrastructure. As of July 2024, the fuel needed to supply Gaza’s energy needs remains woefully inadequate.[296]

On November 7, 2023, UNOPS reported a “staggering 92 per cent drop in water consumption from pre-conflict levels,” finding “the vast majority of sewage stations now inoperative,” and warned of “a water and sanitation crisis of catastrophic proportions.”[297]

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of February 16, water production in Gaza stood at just 5.7 percent of what it was before the current hostilities.[298] In August 2024, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assessment in Gaza found that 1.4 million people face a shortage of drinking water and also face unsafe conditions when accessing sanitation facilities.[299]

International humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for. This is a positive obligation that requires Israel also to protect Palestinians’ right to water and to take “deliberate, concrete, and targeted” measures to ensure the full realization of these rights. Depriving a population of access to water amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, a war crime. The right to water, which includes the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, is also a human right, and is derived from the right to life and the right to an adequate standard of living.[300]

Israel is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and remains bound to its terms at all times, including during armed conflicts and public emergencies.[301] As such, Israel continues to bear the obligation to respect, protect, and fulfil all economic, social, and cultural rights, including the rights to food, water, housing, and health.[302]

In its general comments interpreting the obligations of states parties with respect to these rights, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) has repeatedly reiterated that states must comply with certain core obligations that represent the minimum essential levels of these rights, non-compliance with which cannot be justified even in times of conflict, as they are non-derogable. This includes, among other things, several core obligations to the right to health that Israel has clearly failed to comply with according to the evidence included below:

• To ensure equitable distribution and access to health facilities, goods and services on a non-discriminatory basis, especially for vulnerable or marginalized groups;[303]
• To ensure that food aid reaches the population…and will ensure freedom from hunger, and respect for the minimum core content of the right to food;[304]
• To ensure access to safe and potable drinking water, adequate sanitation, housing and food;[305] and
• To provide essential drugs, as from time to time defined under the WHO Action Programme on Essential Drugs.[306]

Displaced Palestinians’ Humanitarian Situation in Their Own Words

All those interviewed by Human Rights Watch for this report stressed the dire nature of their humanitarian situation. Every interviewee said they were hungry and thirsty and had inadequate or no shelter. They all struggled to access basic goods and public services, and those with health conditions could not access the medication or medical services they required.

Omar, whose survival of appalling conditions since October 7 is recounted in an earlier section, sought refuge in a camp in Khan Younis, though it is likely he has had to move since the interview. He described the conditions:

Where we are now, it is where Israel said is safe – in Khan Younis. We are living in a tent. We don’t have anything. We don’t have food or water, we are living under a plastic tent.

This camp is hosting 77,000 people but actually it only has capacity to host 5,000. There are 17,000 to 19,000 kids in the camp; 90 percent of kids are sick. It has been raining and there is no treatment... We don’t know how to treat the sick people. If you wake up [in the night] to go to the toilet you have to wait hours for your turn.[307]

Youssef, whose wife was heavily pregnant at the time of interview, explained that she had been told by doctors before the outbreak of the hostilities that she would need a cesarean section in order to give birth safely. “I don’t know if labor starts where she should go.…We are not receiving any help. I don’t know what to do when the time comes. It is very heavy on me to even think about it,” he said.[308]

Youssef went on to explain the conditions of his displacement where he was living at the time of interview in a tent in Rafah:

I have to walk three kilometers to get one gallon of water. There is no food. If we were able to find food, it is canned food… My mother has high blood pressure and a sugar problem, but her treatment is unavailable. I am constantly searching for things that are needed to survive.[309]

Human Rights Watch was not able to follow up with Youssef to find out what happened to him and his family.

Interviewees consistently explained how difficult it was for them to find a place to shelter during their journey. People described overwhelmingly crowded places, usually UNRWA or public schools and hospitals that have become informal displacement shelters.[310]

Sami, a 32-year-old single man who is financially responsible for his large, extended family, described how he fled his home in Shuja’iyya in mid-October and found shelter with his family next to al-Quds Hospital:

During our stay in al-Quds Hospital, it was awful. The three buildings were fully packed and so many people were there – maybe 16,000 people. The hospital couldn’t hold or help so many people. There were people getting sick and getting diseases. No one was helping us at that time... It was so hard to find water or even buy it. The water we found was not good for drinking, but we didn’t have any choice.[311]

Al-Quds Hospital was damaged by Israeli airstrikes on October 18.[312] Calling it the “death night,” Sami suffered what he said were first degree burns during the attacks and eventually fled to an UNRWA school on al-Zeituna Street near the south of Gaza City that was being used as a shelter:

When we reached the school, we found the situation was horrible. It was not a place for humans to stay, there were 20,000 people living there…No one was in charge. We didn’t receive mattresses or covers. We couldn’t stay inside the school. We stayed outside, only one night.[313]

All interviewees described the struggle to find food and water to survive – usually a daily routine of walking kilometers to identify people with food or potable water to sell.

Yusra, a 36-year-old woman living with her father, stepmother, and brother who has a mobility disability, fled her home near the fences with Israel on October 11 and sought shelter in Khan Younis, following the Israeli military’s instructions that she received on her telephone via text messages.[314] She explained how difficult it was to find a shelter that could house her father who has several health conditions and needs assistance to walk, as well as her brother who uses a wheelchair. She eventually found a metal container to rent:

We get water but it is not potable water. It is salty water, but we have to drink it sometimes when we cannot get drinking water. Taking a bath is a dream. We can’t heat the water to bathe. We need to find wood for a fire. We burn old clothes to make a fire to cook sometimes. We make bad bread because we don’t have all the ingredients and we cannot afford it... We don’t have enough of anything.[315]

Nadine, a 29-year-old woman, who was living with her husband and four children in Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza before the war, explained how she and her family had been displaced three times and was sheltering in Deir al-Balah at the time of interview. She described how since the outset of the hostilities, prices had dramatically increased as goods became increasingly scarce:

The situation with food and water is horrific. It makes me feel like I am living many kinds of war. A war from my enemies and a war with my own people. Because the food prices went up. Before a bunch of parsley was around one shekel [approximately $0.27] and now it is 5 to 10 shekels. It is the same for a bag flour, it is nearly 100 to 150 shekels. It has been a week that I haven’t had flour...

It is so hard to get water to drink. It is almost impossible to find. My kids have had diarrhea, the flu, and runny noses. All of this because of the [bad] water ... Medication is non-existent. We have no rights anymore. The people who live in Gaza are no longer humans. We survive less than the animals in your country -- they at least have water and food … This morning, I gave my daughters some bread and a bit of cheese. I don’t have food to give them, so I sent them back to sleep. I feel ashamed.[316]

Saeed, a 53-year-old director of an organization focused on programming for children with diabetes in Gaza, explained how difficult it was to access insulin in Gaza and worried for the one week’s supply he had left for his son who has type 1 diabetes. Displaced originally from al-Shati camp in northern Gaza, Saeed fled specifically to Rafah to try and find insulin and better access to other rights-essential goods, including menstrual hygiene products, and services for his five children than in other areas such as Deir al-Balah where he had sought refuge previously:

The price of food and water these days – you can multiply it by 30 or 40 times since before the war. We buy all our water. There are more than one million people now in Rafah. The traffic is terrible, moving around is tiring…I moved here to get insulin. I have two rounds of medication left…but there is no solution…I don’t know what will happen. It is a huge problem that I will be facing soon. Our kids are not just dying from bombs – but from eating the food and the water, and when they need medication.

My son is one of triplets, the other two are girls. I cannot find feminine hygiene products for my girls at all. In Rafah where I am now, we cannot find any; I got tired just looking. Maybe there is in other places in Gaza, but here in Rafah there is nothing. I tried to get pampers [baby diapers] for my girls for their periods but there are none.[317]

Tarek, a 53-year-old man with 11 children also fled his home in al-Shati refugee camp in the early days of the war and sought refuge with his son who was receiving treatment for leukemia in al-Rantisi Specialist Hospital in Gaza. He said the hospital was eventually damaged in an Israeli airstrike and he fled with his family to Rafah:

I don’t think there is worse than the conditions we are living in now, as much as I will try to explain in words it’s completely different living it. I’ve been sick since the day I arrived to Rafah – that means 30 or 40 days ago, I also have diabetes that I’m not monitoring or even taking medication for, my wife also has diabetes…My 7-year-old son has leukemia, his immunity is weak and no one has anything here to help with his condition, I don’t even have a way to contact his physician. I also have kids who have other conditions like eye-sight problems, and one has injuries in both legs.

I just sent my son out with five shekels (approximately US$1.30) because we are out of water. That amount will get us five liters and we are fifteen people so by tonight we will run out of water again and if we can’t find drinkable water we will drink the sea water. It happened to me many times when I had to drink sea water. You don’t understand how much we are suffering.

Regarding sanitary pads for my girls: we can’t find any at the markets and even if we were able to find some, we can’t even afford to buy them anymore because they are so expensive; one pack may cost between 25 to 30 shekels (approximately US$6-$8) now, so they are using diapers.[318]

Conclusion

The Israeli authorities have continued to force the mass displacement of people to areas where their human rights are violated. Israeli military did not prepare any infrastructure to provide goods and services essential for their human rights, prevented humanitarian actors from carrying out activities adequate to do so, and have actively and intentionally taken steps to make unavailable and inaccessible what few rights-essential resources displaced people could access through the widespread destruction of local food-production capacity, water, electricity, fuel throughout Gaza. While the obligation in article 49 of the Geneva Convention is for the Occupying Power to provide safeguards “to the greatest practicable extent” for the evacuated population, the ICRC commentary notes that if it “is not possible to return the evacuated persons to their homes within a comparatively short period, it will be the duty of the Occupying Power to provide them with suitable accommodation and make proper feeding and sanitary arrangements.”[319] It is now a over a year since the conflict began and more than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing “extremely critical” levels of hunger.[320] The only way into besieged and occupied Gaza, surrounded by Israel to the north and east and Egypt to the south, is through Israeli-controlled borders. In November 2023, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Avi Dichter, said that “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” In pursuit of this goal, the Israeli military bombed civilian infrastructure and residences, and took steps that ensured a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which displaced people are unable to access food, water, sanitation or health care, and where children are dying of starvation and preventable diseases. Before the war, about 500 trucks entered Gaza daily, carrying commercial goods and humanitarian aid, and the number has since drastically plummeted. In August 2024, only 1,559 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Rafah border crossings even when a famine alert was declared in parts of Gaza this summer.[321]

Between September 1 and 15, 2024, of the 94 planned humanitarian missions coordinated with the Israeli authorities for northern Gaza only 37 (or 39 percent) went ahead. A total of 25 (or 27 percent) were denied access.[322]

These policies and practices are evidence of the war crimes and crime against humanity of forced displacement, and evidence of Israel’s violation of displaced persons human rights, including the rights to food, health, water, and sanitation. Israel has at best failed to adhere to the strict obligations of article 49 of the Geneva Convention to evacuate people to areas where their humanitarian needs can be met, and at worst driven them to places where they are intentionally being starved and put in harm’s way.

 

Making Forced Displacement Permanent: Widespread Destruction of Places of Origin

After five months of devastating war and destruction, the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza give the impression that its objectives go beyond destroying Hamas. As Major General Giora Eiland wrote last December in Yedioth Ahronoth there appears to be an effort to “turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” And indeed, almost everything that allows a human society to function has been destroyed: civil register, property register, cultural and health infrastructure, most of the schools built by UNRWA.[323]

― Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission, March 5, 2024

International humanitarian law (IHL) prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except temporarily, when required for their security or imperative military reasons.[324] People must be allowed to return once hostilities have ended. In the interim, the Israeli military should not be taking actions that render return impossible. This includes actions which have made Gaza uninhabitable for years to come through the widespread destruction and levelling of large parts of Gaza, particularly at times when Israeli forces are in control of an area, and active fighting has ceased. Analysis of satellite imagery shows that the damage caused by the Israeli military often appears to follow a pattern that includes aerial bombardment of areas, followed by the intervention of ground forces, and in certain instances, once a relative level of control has been achieved, the deliberate bulldozing and razing of territory and the use of controlled demolitions. Some of this destruction appears to clearly go beyond what is militarily necessary and demonstrates an intention to systematically destroy parts of Gaza, frustrating the right to return.

On August 1, 2024, the UN said “the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip has produced a volume of debris that is 14 times greater than the combined total from all conflicts over the past 16 years.”[325] The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimated the amount of debris in Gaza at 37 million tons in mid-April, or 300 kilograms per square meter stating that there was more rubble than in Ukraine, and that the rubble is likely heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance.[326] On May 2, 2024, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimated that it would take between US$40 and $50 billion to rebuild Gaza and require an effort on a scale the world has not seen since World War II.[327]

Destruction of Civilian Infrastructure

On February 8, 2024, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that his office had recorded “widespread destruction and demolition by the Israeli military of civilian and other infrastructure, including residential buildings, schools and universities in areas in which fighting is not or no longer taking place.”[328] Türk’s observations covered the period since late October 2023, but he noted reports of destroyed residential buildings and blocks taking place in Khan Younis at the time of his statement. Reminding Israeli authorities “that forcible transfer of civilians may constitute a war crime,”[329] he said that the “destruction of homes and other essential civilian infrastructures…appears to be aimed at or has the effect of rendering the return of civilians to these areas impossible.”[330]

According to the World Bank, by January 21, 2024, and compared to figures before the conflict, 83.6 percent of all health infrastructure in Gaza was damaged or destroyed; 83.4 percent of education facilities; 75.8 percent of information and communications technology; 61.6 percent of housing; and 62 percent of electricity lines.[331] On January 5, Martin Griffiths, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, stated “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable.”[332] As of July 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) had registered more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) since the October 7 and declared that there were no functional hospitals in the enclave’s southernmost city of Rafah, following Israel’s recent offensive there.[333]

UNOSAT reported on September 27 based on images from September 3 and 6 that approximately 130,000 buildings had been damaged or destroyed.[334] This amounts to around 52 percent of the total structures in Gaza and 178,132 estimated damaged housing units. The most affected governorates are Gaza, Khan Younis, with approximately 35,000 damaged or destroyed buildings.