According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, there has been an escalation in recent days in the forced displacement of residents from Gaza City to the South, due to the Israeli occupation’s crimes, with approximately 190,000 people being compelled to leave their homes, because of the bombing.

At the same time, more than 15,000 residents returned to their original neighbourhoods in Gaza City by midday Tuesday. These families had moved their belongings to the south for safekeeping, but returned to Gaza city due to the absence of even the most basic means of survival in the South.

Israel accelerating forced displacement in Gaza City

The Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis and Rafah, which currently hosts nearly 800,000 people is falsely referred to as a ‘safe zone’ by the occupation, even though it has been subjected to more than 109 airstrikes and repeated bombardments, leaving over 2000 killed in successive massacres committed by the Israeli army inside Al-Mawasi itself. This ‘safe zone’ has no hospitals, no infrastructure, and no vital services such as food, water, shelter, electricity or education, making survival there virtually impossible.

The Israeli occupation is planning to cram 1.7 million Palestinians into the designated ‘safe zone’- which is no more than 12% of the total area of the Gaza Strip, under its systematic forced displacement policy which aims to empty Gaza City and the wider northern area of the Strip of Palestinians. This is a violation of international law, and a war crime.

All states complicit are fully responsible for these crimes

Most of the 1.3 million residents of Gaza City and the North Gaza Governate have been forcibly displaced to the western parts, while almost 350,000 have been displaced from the eastern neighbourhoods of the city and are now sheltering in the central and western areas.

The Media Office describes the international silence and failure to uphold legal and moral responsibilities as “disgraceful”, and says it holds all states complicit in genocide fully responsible for the:

systematic crimes and their resulting international legal consequences.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.