Juan Cole
Informed Comment / October 10, 2024
Ann Arbor – In a further crime against humanity, Israeli authorities are now attempting to complete the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, where 400,000 Palestinians are still residing, despite earlier Israeli efforts to force them out.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said that Israeli occupation officials instructed residents to escape via perilous paths to already congested regions like Al-Mawasi in the south. Despite being marked by Israel as a “humanitarian zone,” these more southerly areas remain unsafe, the organization pointed out, with ongoing combat and regular airstrikes. Since residents were given very short notice to leave, and since there are hundreds of thousands of them, many Palestinians may choose to stay put, which, NRC points out, heightens the risk to their lives from the Israeli army.
NRC quoted the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur, as saying that “Israel is seeking to permanently alter the composition of Gaza’s population with ever-expanding evacuation orders and widespread and systematic attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure,” in violation of International Humanitarian Law.
NRC warns, “Civilians who do not leave the area do not lose their right to protection. Under international humanitarian law, Israel is defined as the occupying power and a party to the conflict. Both roles carry obligations to guarantee the protection of the civilian population and facilitate their unhindered access to humanitarian aid.”
The Switzerland-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor collected testimonies from fleeing northern families that reached Gaza City. They said that in the north bodies were lying in the streets. Israel’s continuing bombing of civilian houses left many persons trapped under the rubble. The limited number of functioning ambulances were not able to reach many of the victims, since Israel had bombarded at least 20 houses in the north in the past four days.
The organization said that food is hard to come by in the Jabalia and Beit Lahia camps, given the current siege, but that it had been scarce for some time because Israel had closed border checkpoints. It observed, “The limited amount of goods and other aid that had previously been allowed to enter the area was blocked by Israel for more than a week prior to the new invasion.”
The Euro-Med Monitor field team received testimonies from citizens, who were able to reach Gaza City, about witnessing dead bodies lying in the streets. These eyewitnesses also stated that they saw victims trapped beneath the debris of bombed-out houses, and that ambulance and civil defense crews were unable to reach the area as at least 20 houses were targeted by Israeli forces in a four-day period.
The Rome Statute that charters the International Criminal Court lists as one of the actions making for “crimes against humanity” under article 7 — “d. Deportation or forcible transfer of population.” That action is later defined this way: “”Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means 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.” The current ethnic cleansing drive in northern Gaza is not justified by any military rationale; Israeli authorities declared the area free of Hamas months ago. Civilians are being targeted, as has all too often been the case in Israel’s total war on Gaza.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reports that the Israeli occupation military besieged the Jabalia camp and Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza strip on Wednesday for the fourth consecutive day.
Although the Israeli military is attempting to expel the population, it continues indiscriminate bombing, putting at risk the lives of those Palestinians who do take to the roads and attempt to move south.
Euro-Med said it had received credible reports that Israeli troops shot down five Palestinians, including a family, when they attempted to flee the Jabalia camp while waving a white flag.
On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers surrounded Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, one of the few at least partially functioning medical institutions left in the north, and demanded that all the patients and physicians leave it. The Israeli have twice bombed the Kamal Adwan facility, but physicians and staffers have striven to keep it in service for the 300,000 residents of the Jabalia refugee camp. The Israelis are now attempting to empty it.
Dr. Hossam Abu Safieh, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told Al-Jazeera on Wednesday that he and several doctors tried to leave the hospital for Gaza City, but were bombed by the occupation army and had to return to the hospital. Dr. Khaled Ben Boutreif, one of the French doctors returning from Gaza, confirmed this information, according to Al Jazeera.
According to a voice recording acquired by Al-Jazeera, Abu Safieh reported that several intensive care patients were placed on ventilators on Tuesday evening in an attempt to transfer them to southern hospitals.
Al Jazeera quoted French doctor Pascal André, who said that the situation is “insane” because patients in intensive care by definition have severe health problems and now find themselves forced to leave under difficult circumstances for already over-burdened southern medical facilities without any assurances about the safety of their transfer, which requires suitable medical equipment and oxygen devices. André told the Qatari channel that the French medical team operating on behalf of UN agencies such as the World Health Organization has been kept out of Gaza since Sunday by the Israeli soldiers at Kerem Abu Salem checkpoint.
The channel quoted French nurse Iman Marafi as saying that the Israeli expulsion orders are “a real catastrophe and direct death sentence.” That is because some children forced out of intensive care units will not survive without ventilators, and she pointed out that when they reach the hospitals in the south there is no guarantee that the necessary equipment for their care will be available.
Al Jazeera reports that the Kamal Adwan hospital only has 150 to 200 beds. It maintains an intensive care unit for premature infants, and has one other multipurpose unit. It offers surgical services as well as gynaecology, paediatrics, emergency services, a laboratory, and an X-ray department.
—
Bonus video added by Informed Comment:
Palestinians shot at while fleeing Israeli assault in north Gaza | Al Jazeera Newsfeed
Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment; he is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the author of, among others, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
