As its attacks in north Gaza escalate, the Israeli army has ordered the entire civilian population there – some 400,000 people – to evacuate. It has also cut off food aid to all who remain.
In an Op-ed published in The New York Review of Books on October 17, HRW’s Program Director Sari Bashi details how the Israeli military’s actions in northern Gaza repeatedly risk the war crimes of forced displacement and using starvation as a weapon of war.
In the year since Hamas-led fighters committed heinous attacks in southern Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and taking scores of hostages, Israeli officials have allowed only a trickle of aid to enter Gaza. “Almost everyone in Gaza is struggling to get adequate food,” Bashi writes. “And for half a million people, the shortages are catastrophic. Malnutrition has killed children, most hospitals are not functioning, and infectious diseases, including polio, have spread.”
Israeli authorities say they issued evacuation orders for the north this month to give civilians a chance to flee to safety as the Israeli military targets Hamas. But, as Bashi writes, “there’s mounting evidence that the Israeli military is unlawfully seeking to force civilians out of northern Gaza, with no safe place to go, no safe way to get there, and no apparent plans to let them return.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military has not allowed food aid to enter northern Gaza since October 1. “During that time it has ordered hospitals there evacuated amid intensifying, deadly attacks, including on a food distribution center,” Bashi writes. “Water wells, bakeries, medical points, and shelters in the north have shut down. Aid organizations have ceased services.”
But here’s the bottom line: Civilians maintain their protected status whether or not they heed military evacuation orders. As the occupying power, the Israeli military must ensure adequate aid reaches them wherever they are.
But the situation for the 400,000 people left in northern Gaza is dire. As Bashi writes, “People in northern Gaza are caught between fear of attack and starvation and fear that if they leave their homes, they won’t be allowed to return.”
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