Author Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) – The UN Human Rights Office on Friday accused Israel of violating international law that forcibly put Palestinians under a “mandatory evacuation order.”
Israeli forces issued what the United Nations calls 10 mandatory evacuation orders covering a large area across Gaza as it resumed the war against Hamas on March 18, ending a two-month-old ceasefire, extending the rule.
“These evacuations do not comply with the requirements of international humanitarian law,” Thameen al-Kheetan, a spokesman for human rights for the United Nations, said in a statement Friday.
Israel’s permanent mission to Geneva told Reuters that it was carried out under international humanitarian law.
“Israel is evacuating civilians to protect them from Hamas terrorists, who ruthlessly use it as a human shield for flagrant violation of international law,” the mission said in a statement. It also accused Hamas of refusing to release the remaining hostages in Gaza to delay the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister were prosecuted by the International Criminal Court along with Hague’s Hague war crime charges, which Israel refused.
“Israel has not taken any measures to provide accommodation for the evacuated population, nor has it ensured that these evacuations are carried out under satisfactory conditions of sanitation, health, safety and nutrition,” Al-Kheetan’s statement added.
It said more than half of northern Gaza appeared to be in accordance with this order, and those who had just been displaced from the southern part of the enclave in Rafa were forced to go to the coastal Mavasi coast.
It added: “We are deeply concerned about the shrinking space of Gaza civilians who have been forcibly displaced from large territory by Israeli troops.”
According to the United Nations, at least 855 Palestinians have been killed and 1,869 injured since the resumption of Israeli air strikes on March 18.
(Reported by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editor of Alex Richardson)
