Five Israeli human rights organizations condemn the mass evacuation orders in Gaza, describing them as war crimes.

This came in a joint statement issued by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (LAC), Gisha, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual (CDI), and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), all non-governmental organizations.

Over the past few weeks, the Israeli occupation army has intensified its evacuation orders for numerous neighborhoods in Gaza City, as well as its targeting of residential towers and buildings, in a policy Palestinian officials say is aimed at forcing Palestinians to flee the city to areas in the southern Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, the Israeli occupation army announced it had begun a "ground invasion of Gaza City." However, field evidence and local sources confirm that no ground incursion has taken place, and that it is merely intensifying artillery and air strikes, as well as bombings using booby-trapped robots, to terrorize Palestinians and force them to flee in a war of extermination and displacement.

The human rights organizations said in their statement, "With the Israeli army launching a military operation aimed at deepening its invasion of Gaza City, and the continued heavy bombardment at night and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including dozens of residential towers and schools, dozens of innocent civilians are being killed daily, including a large number of children."

The statement added: "Others have been forced to flee to overcrowded areas lacking even the most basic services, leaving civilians with a tragic choice between death under bombardment or relocation to an inhumane location."

Following this, the organizations sent an urgent letter, according to the statement, to Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Ghassan Alian.

She explained that the letter "demands the immediate cancellation of the mass displacement orders issued by the Israeli army against the residents of Gaza City."

The organizations said, "These orders are blatantly illegal, are being implemented in an area where a mass famine has already been declared, and target a suffering population, exhausted by two years of war and without a safe haven."

She added: "The orders issued by the army require approximately one million people (in Gaza City) to move to an area in the southern Gaza Strip that cannot accommodate such a large number of people, which constitutes an additional serious violation of civilian rights."

Editor's Picks

Netanyahu attacks Qatar following the Israeli aggression against it, and Doha responds: Violations of international law will not go unpunished.

Canada describes the occupation's attack on Gaza as "horrific," and the Irish president calls for Israel's exclusion from the United Nations.

A bloody day in Gaza: The occupation kills more than 114 people, including displaced persons forced from their homes.

A missile from Yemen sends millions of Israelis into shelters and closes airspace at Ben Gurion Airport.

In the letter, the organizations emphasized that these orders "represent a clear violation of international humanitarian law and cannot be justified on the grounds of 'urgent military necessity.'"

"What is happening is a de facto forced displacement that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity. It could even be considered ethnic cleansing, especially in light of public statements by government officials regarding their intention to maintain a permanent Israeli presence in Gaza," she said.

She stressed that "the forced transfer of protected populations, whether by force, the threat of force, or by creating an environment that makes life impossible, including through starvation, is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as each of these means constitutes a violation of the law in and of itself."

The organizations warned that targeting civilians, relief personnel, or the civilian infrastructure on which they depend is "absolutely prohibited."

It called for "the immediate cancellation of the displacement orders, the permission for the displaced to return, an end to the systematic policy of destruction, and the urgent and widespread expansion of humanitarian access throughout the Gaza Strip, including the north."

On August 8, the Israeli government approved a plan proposed by Netanyahu to gradually reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip, starting with Gaza City.

On August 11, the Israeli occupation army launched an attack on the city, starting from the Zeitoun neighborhood (southeast), in an operation later dubbed "Gideon Vehicles 2." The attack included the demolition of homes using booby-trapped robots, artillery shelling, indiscriminate gunfire, and forced displacement.

With American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving 64,964 Palestinians dead and 165,312 injured, most of them children and women, and causing a famine that has killed 428 Palestinians, including 146 children.