At least three dead as thousands try to reach a food distribution site of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in southern Gaza.

At least three people have died and dozens have been injured in war-ravaged Gaza as thousands of starving Palestinians attempted to get food from a controversial Israeli-United States organisation, laying bare the scale of the catastrophe inflicted on the enclave by Israel’s three-month blockade of aid.

In punishing midday heat on Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians clambered over fences and pushed through packed crowds to reach life-saving supplies brought by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new and controversial group tasked with the delivery of aid to Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Amid the buzz of Israeli military helicopters overhead and gunfire rattling in the background, desperate crowds, including women and children, in southern Gaza’s Rafah area struggled to reach the food distribution point on the GHF’s first day of operation.

“We have been dying of starvation. We have to feed our children who want to eat. What else can we do? I could do anything to feed them,” a Palestinian father told Al Jazeera.

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“We saw people running, and we followed them, even if it meant taking a risk, and it was scary. But fear is not worse than starvation.”

Apart from the deaths and injuries, several people also went missing in the ensuing stampede, officials in Gaza said, with the incident coming amid widespread hunger and relentless Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians, including children.

“The occupation forces, positioned in or around those areas, opened live fire on starving civilians who were lured to these locations under the pretence of receiving aid,” Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement, adding that the incident “provides undeniable evidence of the Israeli occupation’s total failure in managing the humanitarian catastrophe it has deliberately created”.

“What happened today in Rafah is a deliberate massacre and a full-fledged war crime, committed in cold blood against civilians weakened by over 90 days of siege-induced starvation.”

In a statement earlier, the Israeli military said its forces did not direct gunfire towards the Palestinians but rather fired warning shots in an outside area. It claimed that control over the situation had been established and aid distribution would continue as planned.

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‘Reckless, inhumane plan’

The aid by GHF, a foundation backed by the US and endorsed by Israel, arrived in Gaza despite allegations that the new group did not have the experience or capacity to bring relief to more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

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The United Nations and aid groups say the organisation does not abide by humanitarian principles and could serve to further displace people from their homes as Palestinians move to receive aid from a limited number of distribution sites.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that seeing thousands of Palestinians storming the aid site was “heartbreaking“.

“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population,” he told reporters. “We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians wherever they are.”

The chaos underscored the staggering level of hunger gripping Gaza. According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report, 1.95 million people – 93 percent of the enclave’s population – are facing acute food shortages.

Aid groups have warned for months that Israel is using starvation in Gaza as a weapon of war.

“This is not how aid is done,” Ahmed Bayram, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera, describing the scene in Rafah as the “inevitable consequence of a reckless and inhumane plan”.

“These are the scenes we have literally been warning about all month now. It spread chaos. It spread confusion. And this is the result,” he said.

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“I think the best thing that can be done now is for this plan to be cancelled, to be reversed, and for us professional humanitarians in the UN and NGOs to do our job. There are tonnes and tonnes of aid waiting across the border. [It’s a] very simple decision: open the gates and keep them open.”

Israel made the GHF, a Swiss-based entity formed in February through back-channel meetings between Israeli-linked officials and business figures, a lead aid distributor. Meanwhile, Israel has blocked the UN and other international organisations from bringing in aid.

Despite being promoted as a neutral body, the GHF’s close ties to Israel and the US have prompted widespread condemnation. Its former head suddenly resigned this week, citing the foundation’s inability to uphold the core humanitarian principles of “neutrality, impartiality and independence”.

According to a report in The New York Times, the GHF emerged from “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and businesspeople with close ties to the Israeli government”.

Israel has said its forces are not involved in the physical distribution of aid, although it backs the system’s use of biometric screening, including facial recognition, to vet aid recipients. Palestinians fear it is another Israeli tool of surveillance and repression.

Critics have also warned that the GHF’s structure – and its concentration of aid in southern Gaza – could serve to depopulate northern Gaza, as planned by the Israeli military.

‘This is definitely not enough’

While the previous UN-led distribution network operated about 400 sites across the Strip, the GHF has set up only four “mega-sites” for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

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In Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported that many of the food parcels being handed out were inadequate to sustain families.

Khoudary described a typical food box with 4kg (8.8lb) of flour, a couple of bags of pasta, two cans of fava beans, a pack of tea bags and some biscuits. Other food parcels contained lentils and soup in small quantities.

Although the GHF said it distributed about 8,000 food boxes on Tuesday, which it claimed amounted to 462,000 meals, Khoudary said the rations would barely sustain a single family for long.

“This is definitely not enough, and it is not enough for all the humiliation that Palestinians are going through to receive these food parcels,” she said.

Summary

The first thing I thought of was the Nakba [“The Catastrophe”] of 1948, I thought [the Israeli authorities] were trying to do this again, to take over our land and our houses again. Once I heard the evacuation order to go south, my first reaction was: I’m not leaving. It is not an option to leave everything I have worked for…but then the bombs started and our houses were being destroyed, I needed to protect my family. This is why I finally left.

― Dr. Hassan, a 49-year-old man who fled with his family from his home near Jabalia in northern Gaza to Khan Younis in the south, November 30, 2023

Dr. Hassan fled from his home in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on October 11, 2023, and fled south where he and 36 other members of his family sought refuge in Khan Younis after the Israeli military instructed people to go there for their safety. He described Israeli bombardments while fleeing along the main artery to the south, the Salah al-Din Road, and Israeli airstrikes when he got to Khan Younis where all the shelters were full, and his family had to separate to find somewhere to sleep. After multiple rounds of displacement Dr. Hassan and his family remain displaced in southern Gaza.

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza carried out devastating attacks on southern Israel, committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians. Israel responded with a military offensive against Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. This offensive, which includes a massive bombing campaign and ground attacks across Israeli-occupied Gaza, continues to this day. There have been ongoing attacks on military targets, but there have also been significant amounts of unlawful airstrikes and destruction of civilian infrastructure and housing, a tight blockade of Gaza that has led to a humanitarian catastrophe and amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. Since the first days of the offensive, Israel has carried out these acts in conjunction with an evacuation system that has flagrantly failed to keep Palestinians in Gaza safe, and in fact put them in harm’s way. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. As this report will show, Israel’s actions have intentionally caused the mass and forced displacement of the majority of the civilian population of Gaza.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million people were displaced in Gaza as of October 2024 out of a population of 2.2 million people. This report examines the Israeli authorities’ conduct which has led to this extraordinarily high level of displacement and finds these actions amount to forced displacement. Given the evidence strongly indicates that multiple acts of forced displacement were carried out with intent, it amounts to war crimes. The report further finds that the Israeli government’s acts of forced displacement are widespread and systematic. Statements by senior officials with command responsibility show that forced displacement is intentional and forms part of Israeli state policy and therefore amount to a crime against humanity. Israel’s actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Play Video Read a text description of this video DATE LOCATOR: Oct, 2023,Gaza SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary We’ve just been targeted. We’ve just been targeted. We’ve just been targeted by warplanes. We are now with the Red Crescent crews. Thank God for your safety, Firas. Thank you, Firas. No need to worry, we’re okay. VO: This is the story of two Palestinian residents, Ghassan and Sara, who sought to escape the violence in Gaza but were trapped in the hostilities and their lives irreversibly changed. TITLE: WARNING This video contains violent images and descriptions including people injured, and distressing scenes. Viewer discretion advised. TITLE: NOWHERE IS SAFE TITLE: GHASSAN DATE LOCATOR: Oct, 2023, Gaza VO: Since the start of the hostilities, Ghassan has kept a video diary documenting his daily life. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary Jabalia camp is completely isolated from the world, they cut the internet, they cut everything. VO: Israel has enforced a tight blockade of Gaza. This has led to a humanitarian catastrophe. And an evacuation system that has unashamedly failed to keep civilians in Gaza safe. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan I have here [a video] when they [Israeli forces] dropped leaflets on us to evacuate. Leaflets demanding that we evacuate the area. Here it is clearly as you can see. “Head towards…” this is the trap I’m talking about. VO: For the displacement of individuals to be lawful the following conditions are among those that must be met. Ensure people are moved safely, not separated from their families and have access to food, water, sanitation and healthcare. The evacuation should be temporary, and displaced people should be free and able to return to their homes as soon as possible after the hostilities end in that area. Israel’s military has displaced 90 percent of the Gaza population, around 1.9 million people. VO/ANIMATED MAP: This map shows the evacuation order on October 13, 2023, directing civilians towards supposed ‘safe zones.’ Human Rights Watch investigated the Israeli authorities’ policies and conduct. We found that repeated evacuations, mass destruction, and failure to provide safe passage or access to food, shelter or medical care make the displacement unlawful. VO: The level of intent and evidence of a state policy of forced displacement means these are war crimes and crimes against humanity. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan During that time, there was chaos and panic. The street where I was walking was being bombed, bombed, bombed everywhere. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary Here we are, displaced in the streets of Jabalia camp. No one knows anything about us, and we’ve lost all means of communications. We found a car on the street, and Hisham and I sat inside it. We don’t know where to go, and this car isn’t ours. But we opened its doors and sat inside. If someone finds this phone and we are no longer alive…let them tell the story and broadcast these recordings. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan Suddenly, I saw a massive flash…When you are in the epicenter of an explosion, you feel absolutely nothing. You start checking your body to see if you’ve lost any parts of it. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary This place was bombed last night. We are now in the early hours of dawn. I was inside this car. I was hit by shrapnel while sitting inside it. Can’t you see how bad it is [the destruction]? The post office building was targeted. While I was sitting inside this car. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan I owe my survival to that car, which shielded us from the blast and the flying shrapnel. Afterward, I decided that we had to escape from the north at least. Our relationship to the camp is our life, it’s [the camp] our whole life. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan Displacement feels like your soul is being torn from your body. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan, video diary Everyone is evacuating to different places. I just left the camp heading to Rafah after being bombed. We’re riding a donkey-drawn cart because there are no cars. VO/ANIMATED MAP The Salah al-Din Road is the main highway that runs north-south through the Gaza Strip. Israeli evacuation orders started on October 13, 2023, running until January, 4, 2024. They instructed people to flee using this road and assured “safe passage.” Later evacuation orders told people to use a different route. Investigations by Human Rights Watch through interviews, satellite imagery, photos and videos demonstrate that this road was rarely, if ever, safe. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan Honestly, there are moments when you feel like you are alone on this planet. That day, the electricity was completely cut off from the northern Gaza Strip. And also the water, which the occupation [Israel] declared they had cut off from Gaza, and the communications and internet networks. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan When I reached Rafah, I realized it was a trap. A mousetrap, as we call it. We lived in a house consisting of three floors. Over 200 members of my family had sought refuge in this house. Imagine, I was sleeping in a space only as large as my body. If I turn to this side, I bump into something and if I turn to the other side, I bump into something. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary The bombing continues, with massive destruction and limited resources. TITLE: Hamoud, Ghassan’s son SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary And this is Hamoud. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary What do you think of the current situation? SOUNDBITE: Hamoud, [Ghassan’s son] video diary Good. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary Are you scared of the sounds of bombing? SOUNDBITE: Hamoud, [Ghassan’s son] video diary Yes. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary What is your wish? SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary For the war to end. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary Where do you want to go? SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary Do you want to go back home? SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary Come, Bilal. TITLE: Bilal, Ghassan’s son SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary What’s your wish, Bilal? SOUNDBITE: Bilal [Ghassan’s son] video diary To go back home. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary Do you want to go back home? SOUNDBITE: Bilal [Ghassan’s son] video diary Yes, to eat and drink. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary To eat and drink. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan video diary We hope the war ends and we return to our homes. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan They [Israeli forces] claimed Rafah is a safe area, that Rafah has humanitarian aid. When did aid actually reach Gaza? I spent about a month in Rafah, standing in queues. I stood from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. to get some bread that I bought with my own money. News started spreading that they [Israeli forces] will invade Rafah, and I lived in the Brazil neighborhood on the border. This mix of news and the psychological state caused by the war forced us to flee. Especially that they [Israeli forces] were heavily bombing apartments and homes. So, our option was to move into a tent with the rest of the displaced people. VO: Under the laws of war, Israel, as the occupying power, is only permitted to temporarily evacuate people under its control for specific reasons. Israel must allow all the displaced to return once hostilities end. Instead, most of housing and civilian infrastructure has been destroyed so that much of Gaza is uninhabitable. Rather than meet its obligations to put in place basic protections to ensure access to food, water, sanitation and health care. Israel has taken steps to cut them off. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan People began fleeing from the displacement camp in Rafah little by little. The camp was so crowded that you couldn’t see the sand because there were so many tents. We arrived here [Deir al-Balah], and as you know, there is no truly safe place in Gaza. The shelling continues in this area. There is no safety. In truth, I don’t recall ever feeling safe since I was displaced from the north. I can’t sleep. My mind is always wandering. TITLE: SARA VO/ANIMATED MAP: On December 1, 2023, the Israeli military released an interactive map dividing Gaza into 620 numbered blocks and continued to post and distribute evacuation orders referencing this block system. On December 7, 2023, Sara’s family home in Khan Younis was not in a block slated for evacuation. Human Rights Watch interviewed Sara and analyzed satellite imagery, video and photographs taken from that day. The information gathered indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that civilians were living in this block. TITLE: An actor’s voice has been used to protect Sara’s identity. Sara is not her real name. SOUNDBITE: Sara The Israeli’s had renamed our area by blocks so everyone could keep track of where there could be strikes, we were living in block G, number 108. At around 4 p.m. I was coming home from work, what I saw as I approached was a massacre, it was hectic, everyone was screaming, and all I could see was fire and destruction. I was scared because my kids were home and my sisters were taking refuge at my house, so we had about 20 people living in our apartment on the third floor. Thank God my family in the apartment were ok, it was the building just next to us that had been hit. There was so much damage to the building I couldn’t enter, I could see bodies, people under the rubble. Many people died that day. Seeing all of this has affected my kids hugely, it changed us all. VO/ANIMATED MAP: By analyzing online evacuation orders and photographs of air-dropped leaflets posted online, Human Rights Watch established that block 108 was not designated for evacuation until six-and-a-half weeks after this strike. Human Rights Watch identified at least six additional strikes in this block before the attack on Sara’s relatives’ home which also damaged hers on December, 7, 2023. Just dozens of meters from that attack two additional strikes were carried out in the same timeframe. Analysis of satellite imagery shows that the attack on Sara’s relatives’ home was not an isolated incident. VO/ANIMATED MAP: The evacuation system failed to keep people safe. Evacuation orders were inconsistent, inaccurate and frequently not communicated to civilians at all, or with enough time to allow evacuations. The sheer number of Palestinian civilians forced from their homes demonstrates that displacement in Gaza is widespread. VO: It is also systematic and intentional and unlawful, forming part of Israeli state policy. This amounts to a crime against humanity. Israel should stop collectively punishing civilians in Gaza. Governments should publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population as a war crime and crime against humanity and suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel. TITLE: Sara, Actor’s voice SOUNDBITE: Sara In previous wars they did target specific places, but we would know in advance, and be given warning. This war is completely different. There is nowhere safe for us to go. SOUNDBITE: Ghassan I fear living through another displacement experience, and I fear that winter may come before the war ends. Because this tent you see in front of you won’t hold up in winter. The feeling of loss itself is beyond comparison to any other feeling. I hope…that the time will come when I return to my home, and I rest my head on my pillow in freedom and peace. END CREDITS: Narrator: Nadia Hardman Producer / Editor: Ellie Kealey Producers: Gabi Ivens, Carolina Jordá Álvarez, Léo Martine, Ekin Ürgen Videographer: Yousef al Masharawi Graphics: Win Edson Additional footage / Photographs: Ghassan Salem, AFP, IMAGO Music: Audio Network

Israel is the occupying power in Gaza and as such its conduct is governed by international humanitarian law (IHL). Under IHL – or the laws of war – forcible transfer, which means the forced displacement of any civilian inside an occupied territory, is prohibited, and, if committed with criminal intent, is a war crime. The only exception to this fundamental prohibition is when an occupying power evacuates people for their security or for an imperative military reason. For each displacement of a civilian to be lawful, Israel’s actions must also meet the following conditions: i) ensure that safeguards are in place so that the civilian who is forced from their home is moved safely, is not separated from family, and has access to food and water, health care, sanitation, and reception centers or shelter, ii) ensure the evacuation is temporary; and iii) facilitate the displaced person’s return to their home as soon as possible after the end of the hostilities in the area from where the person was displaced.

Israel claims that the displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population has been justified for the security of the population and for imperative military reasons, and it has taken the requisite steps to safeguard civilians. Because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among the civilian population, Israeli officials claim, the military has evacuated civilians to enable it to target fighters and destroy the groups’ infrastructure, such as tunnels, while limiting harm to civilians, such that the mass displacements were lawful. This report, based on interviews with 39 Palestinians who are internally displaced in Gaza, most multiple times, an intricate analysis of Israel’s evacuation system, the widespread destruction evidenced on satellite imagery, the analysis of videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and roads and the humanitarian situation of the population, finds that Israel’s claims of lawful displacement are largely false. Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are instead committing the war crime of forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Demonstrably, Israel has not evacuated Palestinian civilians in Gaza for their security, as they have not been secure during evacuations or on arrival at designated safe zones. Nor has Israel convincingly claimed that it had a military imperative for forcing most Palestinian civilians from their homes. Even if Israel was able to demonstrate such an imperative, its failure to ensure the security and the guarantee of protections of displaced persons as they fled and in the places to which they were displaced would still render the displacement unlawful. The evacuation system failed to keep people safe and instead often served only to spread fear and anxiety. Evacuation orders were inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations or at all. The evacuation orders also failed to take into account the needs of people with disabilities, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance. Designated evacuation routes and safe zones were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli military. Rather than meet its obligations to put in place basic safeguards to ensure access to food, water, sanitation, and health care, Israel has taken steps to cut them off or severely restrict humanitarian aid. Further, Israel is under an obligation to actively facilitate the return of displaced persons to their homes in areas where hostilities have ceased, but it has instead rendered large parts of Gaza uninhabitable. The Israeli military has carried out demolitions, intentionally destroying or severely damaging civilian infrastructure, including schools, and religious and cultural institutions, including after hostilities had largely ceased in an area and its forces controlled the area. The Israeli military is also establishing what appear to be permanent buffer zones – securitized and emptied areas of land between the Israeli and Gaza border where Palestinians will likely not be allowed to enter.

Military Imperative and the Security Exception

The burden is on Israel, as the occupying power of Gaza, to prove that overriding military reasons have made its repeated instructions to evacuate – which have displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population – imperative, or the evacuations were necessary for the security of the population itself. The term “imperative” sets a very high threshold – higher than an ordinary assessment of military necessity. Displacement can only be justified if it is a measure of last resort for military operations where there are no feasible alternatives. It does not suffice for civilians to be at risk from an active or reasonably expected threat from an act (the Israeli bombardment) that would deprive Palestinian armed groups of, or secure for Israel, as the occupier, a military advantage. For there to be a military imperative, the operation threatened must be one whose frustration would threaten the entire military objective in the conflict.

Israel cannot simply rely on the presence of members of Palestinian armed groups, materiel, and installations in Gaza to justify the displacement of civilians. Israel would have to demonstrate that displacement of the civilians was, in each instance, its only option.

Evacuating a protected population for their security refers to the temporary removal or relocation of civilians from an area of danger or imminent harm to a safer location. This can be done to protect the population from military operations, ongoing hostilities, or other risks to their safety. While it could be argued that Israel at times moved Palestinians in Gaza to areas that were safer than areas from which they were ordered to leave, this report demonstrates that evacuation routes and so-called safe zones were consistently and repeatedly bombed, undermining the Israeli military’s position that people were being moved “for their safety.”

Israel cannot rely on the security and safety of civilians as a justification for evacuating people if there are no safe areas to which civilians can move. Ultimately, as this report will show, even if Israel can demonstrate that its actions fall within the displacement exception, its lack of adherence to the strict protections required to make an evacuation lawful demonstrates that its orders for people to move were a pretext for forced displacement.

Evacuation System

While there are not detailed criteria for what constitutes an IHL compliant evacuation system, article 49 of the Geneva Convention states that civilians should be, among other conditions, moved in “safety.” In other words, the fundamental goal is to protect civilians from the dangers of conflict. Instead of protecting Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s evacuation system put people in harm’s way.

The Israeli military began pounding Gaza with airstrikes on October 7, 2023. Days later, overnight into October 13, 2023, the Israeli military ordered more than a million people in northern Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours. This first broad and urgent mass evacuation order was followed up with more orders and directives to Palestinian civilians throughout the north of Gaza to leave their homes and move south. Israel put in place an evacuation system that gave instructions which were unclear, inaccurate, and contradictory, making it extremely difficult for civilians to know where or when to move. Others contained missing or contradictory information about where to go, when, and which destinations were safe, and were corrected only hours later, if at all. For example, on July 1, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for neighborhoods in eastern Khan Younis and Rafah, including al-Fukhari where the European Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in southern Gaza, is located. The next morning, the Israeli military and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) issued a clarification in English on their X accounts stating that the hospital was not subject to evacuation. The COGAT Arabic Facebook page also updated the evacuation order post to include the clarification. However, this clarification was not shared by any of the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson’s social media accounts. By the time the clarifications were issued, staff and patients had reportedly already started to flee the hospital. Many orders were issued online during time periods coinciding with total telecommunications network blackouts in Gaza. Dozens of orders were issued after the time period specified for safe evacuations had already begun, while others were issued after attacks had already started.

Where evacuation orders did suggest a destination or direction of movement, the orders gave far too little time for people to move through what was already an active conflict zone. Overall, Israel’s evacuation system flagrantly failed to ensure civilians could travel safely or reach safety and would be secure after arriving to their place of displacement, and often served only to create widespread fear and confusion, misery, and anxiety. A recent report from the Independent International Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, found that the Israeli military did not offer assistance to those who were unable to evacuate due to disability, age, illness, or other status.

Click to expand Image Leaflets dropped over Gaza City, ordering residents to evacuate to southern Gaza immediately, October 13, 2023. © 2023 Mohammed Talatene/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Security Situation on Evacuation Routes and in Designated Evacuation Areas

Where civilians did attempt to move away from areas that were declared combat zones, both the routes and destinations were unsafe. Israeli forces’ fire hit civilians on evacuation routes, notably the main north-south artery, Salah al-Din Road. Ultimately, no destination within Gaza was safe, with the Israeli military repeatedly attacking areas it had designated as evacuation areas, including deadly attacks on locations where humanitarian aid workers had shared their precise coordinates with the Israeli military. For example, on February 20, an Israeli tank fired a medium-to-large-caliber weapon at a multi-story apartment building housing only Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff and their families in al-Mawasi, the Israeli-designated humanitarian safe zone. The attack killed two people and injured seven. MSF said it had provided the coordinates of the building to Israeli authorities and neither saw military objects in the area nor received a warning prior to the attack.

Humanitarian Situation in Designated Evacuation Areas

Under the laws of war, Israel is required to put in place measures to ensure the health, nutrition, and safety of the displaced population if it wants to benefit from the evacuation exception to the prohibition on displacement. Instead, it displaced people to areas where it did not provide them with – and where they could not access – essential goods and services. For example, when Israel designated al-Mawasi as a humanitarian safe zone, the 20 square kilometer area had no running water, bathrooms, or the presence of international humanitarian agencies who could coordinate assistance.

Rather than meet its obligations, Israel’s response to the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has been to take steps to deny access to sufficient humanitarian aid in Gaza. It initially imposed a complete siege on Gaza, cutting off essential public services, including water and electricity, to Gaza’s civilian population and deliberately blocking the entry of fuel and rights-critical humanitarian aid. Since then, Israel has damaged and destroyed resources vital for the realization of human rights, including hospitals, schools, water and energy infrastructure, bakeries, and agricultural land, and has permitted only limited humanitarian access, which remains utterly insufficient to meet the essential needs of the population. As a result, Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian crisis. Children have died from malnutrition and dehydration, and as of October 2024, about 1.95 million out of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were projected to suffer “catastrophic,” “emergency,” or “crisis” levels of food insecurity, according to The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (a tool for improving food security analysis and decision-making). The report further states that “the risk of famine between November 2024 and April 2025 persists as long as conflict continues, and humanitarian access is restricted.”

Since January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has three times ordered provisional measures in South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948. On January 26, 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance…in the Gaza Strip.” Despite this binding order, Israel continued to restrict or block aid. Noting that “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” and citing “the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities,” the ICJ issued further measures in March 2024 ordering Israel to ensure the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance “including food, water, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, alongside medical assistance, including medical supplies and support.” A third ICJ order, issued on May 24, required Israel to “maintain open the Rafah crossing for unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” At the time of publication, the Rafah crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it on May 7, 2024.

Creation of Conditions that Prevent Return

IHL requires any evacuation of a population to be temporary and people must be allowed to return to their homes.

Israeli forces have destroyed the majority of Gaza’s water, sanitation, communications, energy, and transport infrastructure, as well as its schools and hospitals. They have systematically razed orchards, fields, and greenhouses. So much civilian infrastructure has been destroyed that much of Gaza is uninhabitable, and it is inconsistent with Israel’s obligation to ensure that civilians can return when hostilities cease in an affected area. It largely took place after Israeli officials specifically stated that damage, not accuracy, was the purpose of bombardments. The World Bank has estimated that as of January 2024, over 60 percent of residential buildings and over 80 percent of commercial facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza. By August 2024, over 93 percent of Gaza’s schools, and all its universities, had been destroyed or significantly damaged. The United Nations Environment Programme has noted the unprecedented impacts of the war on the environment, exposing the community to rapidly growing soil, water and air pollution and risks of irreversible damage to its natural ecosystems. As of July, the World Health Organization (WHO) has registered more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare facilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) since October 7, 2023, and noted that there are no functional hospitals in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah as of writing. The UN Agency for Development (UNDP) has estimated it will cost US$40 to $50 billion to rebuild Gaza and require an effort on a scale the world has not seen since World War II.

Israel has also carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions, including to create an extended “buffer zone” and a new road that bifurcates Gaza in the so-called “Netzarim Corridor.” This permanently changes the land on which they are constructed, involves the demolition of homes and other civilian infrastructure, and demonstrates an intention to prevent Palestinian civilians in Gaza from returning once hostilities have ended. The intention to forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza need not be permanent in order to constitute a war crime. What is abundantly clear, however, is many, if not the majority of, Palestinians in Gaza will be permanently displaced considering the level of destruction experienced in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch calls on Israel to respect the right of Palestinian civilians to return to the areas from which they have been displaced in Gaza. It bears remembering that 80 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees and their descendants, people who were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba. Every person has the right to return to their country, a right enshrined in numerous human rights conventions, and affirmed for Palestinian refugees in UN General Assembly resolutions dating back to 1948. For decades, Israeli authorities have consistently denied this right and blocked Palestinian refugees from returning. This historic precedent looms over the experience of Palestinians in Gaza: those Human Rights Watch interviewed frequently spoke of living through a second Nakba. The violations committed against Palestinians forced to leave their homes more than 75 years ago continue against them and their descendants today as millions of Palestinians, including those living in Gaza during the current hostilities, continue to be denied their right to permanently return.

Forced Displacement as a Crime Against Humanity

Forced displacement can amount to a crime against humanity when it is committed as a part of a widespread or systematic “attack directed against a civilian population,” which means the multiple commission of such crimes committed pursuant to a state policy. The crime against humanity of forced displacement is defined under the Rome Statute as deportation or forcible transfer, meaning 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.

Senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet have repeatedly declared their intent to forcibly displace the population, declaring their policy goal throughout the conflict, from the early days of the war to over a year later, with government ministers stating that the territory of Gaza will decrease, that blowing up and flattening Gaza is beautiful, and that land will be handed to settlers. Avi Dichter, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, said, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” Israeli officials’ statements and actions have indicated they are implementing a plan to create large parts of Gaza as “buffer” areas or corridors, where Palestinians will not be permitted to live. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has at times stated the opposite intention, the actions of the Israeli authorities and military throughout the conflict, as evidenced in this report, together with statements of intent by senior members of government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, demonstrates the underlying state-level policy to forcibly transfer many, if not the majority, of the population in Gaza. Instead of providing for the displaced population, the Israeli authorities have deliberately restricted humanitarian assistance and used starvation as a weapon of war. The Israeli military has brought about widespread destruction in Gaza, much of this caused recklessly as a result of the hostilities or through deliberate razing of land and buildings after the military took control of the area.

Given the sheer number of Palestinian civilians in Gaza driven from their land and the manner of their displacement, and the attempts to make their return impossible, the forced displacement is widespread, systematic, and intentional, and amounts to a crime against humanity.

Ethnic Cleansing

Although not a formal legal term or a recognized crime under international law, “ethnic cleansing” was defined by the final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts on the former Yugoslavia as a purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to remove, by violent and terror-inspiring means, the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. As this report makes clear, the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza was conducted through serious human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The actions of the Israeli authorities in Gaza are the actions of one ethnic or religious group to remove Palestinians, another ethnic or religious group, from areas within Gaza by violent means. The organized, forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, has removed much of the Palestinian population from land, and specific areas of Gaza, that for decades and generations have been their home. Nowhere is this clearer than in areas which have been razed, extended, and cleared for buffer zones and security corridors. The intention of Israeli forces appears likely to ensure they remain permanently emptied and cleansed of Palestinians and, in their place, occupied and controlled by Israeli forces. Taken together, these acts indicate that, at least in the buffer zones and security corridors in Gaza, the Israeli authorities are pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing.

Lack of accountability for grave violations in the OPT has fueled cycles of abuse for years. Victims of serious abuses in Israel and Palestine have faced a wall of impunity for decades. During the current conflict, Israel has cut food, water, and electricity that is vital for the lives of 2.2 million people who have been living under a blockade for 17 years. Entire families have been wiped off the family registry, the health and education systems destroyed, entire districts razed to the ground, all while the victims of these abuses are called “animals.” An entire population is being collectively punished when Israel prevents desperately needed aid from reaching them. The laws of war are clear: atrocities from one side do not justify atrocities from the other side. No party to any conflict is above IHL. Israeli and Palestinian lives have the same dignity, deserve the same protection, and attacks on either should spark the same levels of indignation. Given the grave nature of the violations which have been committed and documented in this report and the pervasive climate of impunity for those crimes, Human Rights Watch has for years pushed the ICC prosecutor to undertake a formal probe consistent with the court’s statute and welcomes the decision by the Prosecutor to seek arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine.

The prevention of return can also amount to the crime against humanity of “other inhumane acts,” using the standard set out by an ICC pre-trial chamber in the Bangladesh/Myanmar situation when it causes great suffering, or serious injury to mental or physical health, and is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, pursuant to a state policy to commit the crime.

Human Rights Watch calls on the Prosecutor to investigate Israeli authorities’ forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.

Human Rights Watch calls on all governments to publicly support the ICC and uphold the court’s independence, and publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution. Above all, Human Rights Watch calls on Israel to urgently and immediately end the mass and forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.

Recommendations

To the Israeli Authorities

Immediately stop forcibly displacing and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Until hostilities end, and where evacuation is unavoidable, implement an evacuation system that provides accurate and timely information to the civilian population with instructions on how to safely reach evacuation areas, and that ensures they are safe, have adequate shelter, and meets other humanitarian requirements.

When issuing evacuation orders, take into account the needs of people with disabilities, and those who are sick or injured, many of whom are unable to leave without assistance. Ensure that evacuation areas can provide for the needs of people with disabilities, the sick, and the injured.

Publicly declare that all displacement of residents of Gaza is temporary and that they will be able to return to their homes and places of origin as soon as hostilities cease or the reason for the displacement ends, whichever is earliest.

Comply with all provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

End deliberate or indiscriminate or other unlawful attacks on civilian objects, including those essential to survival, in areas of origin for displaced people that render them uninhabitable, including attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure, residences, and farmland.

Halt mass demolitions in Gaza, including in the “buffer zone” and along the Netzarim and Philadelphi Corridors that might violate laws-of-war prohibitions against attacks on civilian objects and forced displacement of civilians.

Stop obstructing aid – particularly food, including those items needed by children on a special diet, water, medicine, assistive devices, and fuel – from entering Gaza by fully opening its crossings, urgently opening additional ones, and not placing unjustified restrictions that prevent humanitarian goods from entering Gaza.

Lift the closure of Gaza and permit the free movement of civilians and goods to and from Gaza, subject to individual screenings and physical inspections for security purposes only as necessary, with transparent requirements; publish lists of banned items that are consistent with international standards on “dual-use” items, and provide written justification for any rejections, with the possibility of appeal.

Eliminate the “dual-use” label on medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hearing aids, and other assistive devices needed by people with disabilities and people with chronic health conditions, the restriction of which invariably has a disproportionate negative impact on civilians compared to any military advantage.

Restore access to electricity, water, and telecommunications services.

Reopen the Israeli side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to ensure that Palestinian civilians in Gaza who choose to exercise their right to leave and seek medical treatment or international protection outside of Gaza will not be prevented from doing so, while ensuring their right to return to Gaza.

Once hostilities have ended, allow access to international agencies, local partners, and nongovernmental organizations to conduct reconstruction-based assessments and planning, including for unexploded ordinance clearance, and support them to begin reconstruction as soon as possible.

Engage and work with international agencies, local partners, and NGOs to construct shelters and services to facilitate the return of displaced civilians to the sites of their pre-conflict homes in Gaza, for those who want to return to those places.

Respect the right of all Palestinians in or outside of Gaza to return to their homes or areas of origin in Gaza, other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, or Israel.

Cooperate with the International Criminal Court, including responding to requests for assistance and access.

Set up a fair, accessible, and independent mechanism to provide reparation for gross human rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including compensation, restitution, justice and guarantees of non-recurrence, ensuring victims’ rights are central to the process. This should include compensation for any forced displacement or unlawful destruction of property.

Cooperate with any international register of damage for the purposes of reparations, as called for by the General Assembly Resolution of September 13, 2024.

To Egypt

Keep the Egyptian-controlled side of the Rafah border crossing open to Palestinian civilians who want to exercise their right to leave Gaza, in line with the customary international law obligation of nonrefoulement, not to expel or return anyone to a place where they would face the threat of persecution, torture, or other serious harm.

Ensure Palestinians fleeing Gaza are provided with basic services and support, including access to health care, education, and protection, and help to facilitate the onward movement of Palestinians from Gaza who have legal pathways to other countries.

To All Governments

Publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a war crime and crime against humanity, as well as other violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law by Israeli authorities, and urge them to immediately halt those crimes and cooperate with international judicial bodies and investigative mechanisms.

Increase public and private pressure on the Israeli government to stop violating international humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities, to fully comply with its obligations and the binding orders and advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, and to ensure the entry and safe distribution throughout Gaza of adequate aid and provision of basic services. Consider, in that regard, the review and possible suspension of bilateral agreements with Israel, such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as proposed by the governments of Spain and Ireland, and the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

Suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit violations of international humanitarian law with impunity.

Enforce domestic legislation limiting the transfer of arms and military assistance for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Publicly support the International Criminal Court, uphold the court’s independence, and publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with its work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution.

Urge the Government of Israel to grant access to independent, international monitors, including from the UN Special Procedures.

Impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials credibly implicated in ongoing serious violations, for the purpose of ending these violations.

Address long-standing impunity by Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups for serious crimes under international law, and support reparations for all victims of gross human rights abuses.

Support the creation of a register of damages, caused by unlawful Israeli action to persons in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, for the purposes of calculating reparations.

To Donor States, Companies, UN and Other Humanitarian Agencies, and Investors

Do not provide funding or services where there is a real risk that they would contribute to serious human rights abuses.

Ensure that all assessments, programming, and planning for reconstruction efforts in Gaza are done in collaboration with Palestinian communities there, and are based on fulfilling the human rights of the population, and do not use the status quo ante as a baseline given the severity of harms caused by Israel’s unlawful 17-year closure of Gaza.

To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Investigate Israeli authorities’ forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.

Methodology

This report is based on interviews with 39 internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza. Twenty-two interviewees are male and seventeen are female. All 39 interviews were conducted between November 2023 and June 2024.

Interviews were conducted by telephone in private settings – either completely alone or with the interviewees’ immediate family members present – with assurances of confidentiality. The researcher informed all interviewees about the purpose and voluntary nature of the interviews, and the ways in which Human Rights Watch would use the information. All were told they could decline to answer questions or could end the interview at any time. The researcher told interview subjects they would receive no payment, service, or other personal benefit for the interviews. Interviews were conducted in Arabic using an interpreter and in English if the interviewee spoke English.

To protect confidentiality, pseudonyms are used for all interviewees, except for two who are featured in Human Rights Watch videos.

Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed 184 evacuation orders that the Israeli government posted between October 8, 2023 and August 31, 2024 to official social media accounts, airdropped as leaflets, or delivered by SMS to the residents of Gaza. There is no official data confirming how many evacuation orders were made in the time period covered in this report.

The official social media platforms monitored include the X and Facebook accounts of Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s spokesperson in Arabic, and the Facebook account of the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military body responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid into Gaza. These accounts constitute the principal channels through which evacuation orders were shared on social media. Given that the X account of Lt. Col. Adraee posted the largest number of evacuation orders, predominantly earlier in the day than other accounts, researchers used it as the primary channel of communication to document evacuation orders issued by Israel and documented when the evacuation orders were posted, how much warning they gave people, if any, and where people in various locations were being told to relocate.

In addition, Human Rights Watch searched across social media platforms and the websites of news agencies to find photographs of leaflets. We were unable to verify all the exact dates, when, and locations where leaflets were airdropped, but we aimed to find at least two different sources for the same leaflet to compare the dates they were posted online and where they were reported to have been airdropped. Human Rights Watch reviewed the photographs of leaflets to assess their authenticity by reviewing that the fonts and logos matched those used by the Israeli military and uploaded them on reverse image search engines to check that they were not posted online prior to the date they were believed to have been delivered.

Human Rights Watch was not able to collect an exhaustive list of Israeli evacuation orders because of the high number of phone calls, SMS messages, radio messages, and leaflets airdropped, and our lack of access to Gaza.

Human Rights Watch analyzed dozens of high- and very high-resolution satellite images since October 7, 2023, to document and verify the locations, times, and impacts of many of the attacks included in this report. This allowed us to monitor the damage to residential areas and civilian infrastructure across different governorates in Gaza and track the displacement of the civilian population to temporary, safer areas.

Additionally, Human Rights Watch, utilized derived geospatial datasets generated by UN agencies and mapping groups to assess the scale and extent of destruction across time.

Human Rights Watch analyzed and verified 19 photographs and 19 videos posted online of attacks across Gaza. Researchers compared visual material to satellite imagery to identify exactly where each was recorded, and compared shadows and other time identifiers to determine when the footage was taken. Going frame by frame in the videos, Human Rights Watch observed nine people who had been killed including at least one child and one older woman, as well as people who were injured, or in other ways harmed, as well as buildings, vehicles, and roads that had been damaged. In some cases, Human Rights Watch reviewed and corroborated media reports and investigations which included photographs and videos found online to document findings included in this report.

Background

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

― Fourth Geneva Convention, article 49

Israel’s Occupation

Israel has been occupying the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza – known as the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) – since 1967. Contrary to Israeli government claims, the withdrawal of its ground forces from Gaza in 2005 did not end its occupation. In fact, with the exception of Gaza’s border with Egypt, Israel has continuously maintained effective control over Gaza, including its territorial waters and airspace, the movement of people and goods, and the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies. Israel has effectively rendered Gaza an open-air prison.

Israel’s 17-year closure of Gaza has devastated its economy, exacerbated social and political tensions, and isolated and fragmented its people. Even prior to the recent hostilities, the effects of the closure and other restrictions cumulatively established a pattern of Israeli dominance and abuse that amounts to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

Prohibition of Forced Displacement Under IHL and the Evacuation Exception

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the displacement of protected persons in occupied territories during hostilities, restricts the forced movement of people by an occupying power during conflicts. It prohibits the forcible transfer of civilians within a territory and the deportation of civilians outside of occupied territory. Both categories of displacement fall under the prohibition of forced displacement. Article 49 states:

Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

Forced displacement takes place where the individuals are compelled to move without their genuine consent, by means of force or coercion, from the area in which they are lawfully present. Forcible transfer within a territory does not necessarily require physical force; it includes threats, coercion, or other forms of duress that leave the victims with no real choice but to leave.

In assessing the way civilians have been forced to move within Gaza since October 7, this report will refer to forcible transfer and forced displacement interchangeably.

An occupying power may temporarily evacuate civilians for their security or imperative military reasons. In this case, however, article 49 specifies that the occupying power:

Must ensure that evacuations, to the greatest practicable extent, ensure that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effectuated in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated;

Must ensure that evacuated persons are transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased; and

Must not displace protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when material reasons make it impossible to avoid such displacement.

The extent and application of these exceptions is subject to a degree of interpretation, especially as article 49 states that an occupying power should adhere “to the greatest practicable extent” to the protections listed, but certain principles have been clearly established by courts, tribunals, and international humanitarian law (IHL) commentaries. These include that the displacement must occur in a manner consistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present and consistent with the protection of civilians’ human rights. In addition, if displacement is conducted in an “atmosphere of terror,” it negates any claim that the evacuation was for imperative military reasons.

The Geneva Conventions are clear that evacuated civilians must be treated humanely and that the occupying power ensures their safety and that they are provided with adequate shelter, food, water, and medical care. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary adds that:

This wording is intended to cover the contingency of an improvised evacuation of a temporary character when urgent action is absolutely necessary in order to protect the population effectively against an imminent and unforeseen danger. If the evacuation has to be prolonged as a result of military operations and it is not possible to return the evacuated persons to their homes within a comparatively short period, it will be the duty of the Occupying Power to provide them with suitable accommodation and make proper feeding and sanitary arrangements.

Imperative Military Reason

Israel is bound by the laws of war to act in a manner which minimizes civilian harm. On October 7, referring to Gaza as a “city of evil” that Israel would reduce “to ruins,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced:

All the places where Hamas is organized, of this city of evil, all the places where Hamas hides, operates from – we will turn them into cities of ruins. … I say to the residents of Gaza: get out of there now, because we will act everywhere and with all the strength.

At the first provisional measures hearing at the International Court of Justice on January 12, 2024, legal counsel for Israel stated that “Israel is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.” Another lawyer representing Israel argued that civilian harm was both inevitable in Gaza, and that Hamas was to blame: “Urban warfare will always result in tragic deaths, harm and damage, but in Gaza these undesired outcomes are exacerbated because they are the desired outcomes of Hamas.”

Regardless of its stated objectives, Israel is bound by the IHL rules on the conduct of hostilities. Those rules set out the obligations of each party to a conflict and take into account the conduct of the adversary, including during fighting in population centers. Forced displacement is not the unavoidable result of the lawful conduct of hostilities but a clear violation of Israel’s own obligations.

Under IHL, in circumstances where Israel intends to displace civilians, it is permitted to do so only in cases where it can demonstrate this is necessary for the security of the civilians involved or for a “military imperative.” The concept is narrowly defined in order to prevent abuse, ensuring that any such actions are justified by urgent military needs and do not contravene other IHL principles aimed at protecting civilians.

It has been noted that “courts have set a high threshold for accepting imperative military reasons as a justification, only doing so when civilian evacuations are deemed vital to the success of broader military operations.” For instance, this might include situations where civilian areas need to be evacuated to avoid casualties during intense combat operations or to clear a zone for a critical military operation where the presence of civilians would significantly impede military objectives. For there to be an imperative military reason, it must be “overriding.”

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli military requesting information as to whether Israel had an imperative military reason or a reason related to the security of the population, to immediately displace most of the population in Gaza. We did not receive any substantive response. On October 10, the Israeli military spokesman, R. Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a public statement that “while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we’re focused on what causes maximum damage,” and that Israeli attacks to date had already used “thousands of tonnes of munitions.”

In any event, in each case of attack and evacuation, Israeli commanders are required to consider all alternatives to displacement and to minimize the impact to civilians where displacement was deemed unavoidable. Notably, Israel has had complete control over the timing of the bombardment and associated displacement. With regard to the first mass evacuation orders issued on October 13, 2023, for example, a military imperative would likely not only require Israel to show that the mass evacuation of most Palestinians in northern Gaza was unavoidable, but also that it was required immediately. Israeli decision-makers had to be certain there were no possible options for a more deliberate and orderly evacuation plan for it to achieve its military objectives. It is important to note that it does not need to amount to the mass evacuation of the entire population of northern Gaza to potentially involve an act of forced displacement; the forcible transfer of even one individual can constitute a war crime under IHL.

Even if an imperative military reason existed, the evacuations on October 13, 2023 and subsequent evacuations would still amount to forced displacement because of the immense harm suffered by the civilian population in Gaza, including an absence of meaningful efforts by Israel to erect safeguards to ensure that humanitarian needs would be met. To the contrary, Israel’s policy of starving the population while displacing them demonstrates a failure to protect civilians and further proof that the evacuation orders amount to forced displacement. Exacerbating the impact on displaced people of the overall siege of Gaza, during the over one year of hostilities, the Israeli military has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to move to areas where civilian infrastructure was either not scaled for a large population, such as the al-Mawasi “safe zone,” in previously sparsely populated areas near the seashore, or where previous rounds of bombardment and fighting had extensively damaged and destroyed civilian infrastructure, leaving the displaced with utterly inadequate access to water, food, medical care, and shelter. Additionally, Israel cannot plausibly claim it is conforming to permissible exceptions of military necessity and civilian safety if it forcibly displaces civilians in a manner inconsistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present. As this report will show, the widespread destruction throughout Gaza renders return almost impossible, at least in the foreseeable future.

Any widespread or systematic displacement not justified by imperative military reasons or safety of civilians would constitute forced displacement and if found to be widespread or systematic, pursuant to a state policy, a crime against humanity.

An Assessment of Israel’s Displacement of the Civilian Population

Buildup to the October 13 Evacuation Order

Israel launched a massive military campaign in Gaza hours after armed groups, principally the military wing of Hamas, carried out their attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which included the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel attacked locations throughout Gaza, from Beit Lahiya in the north to Rafah in the south. On October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the country was “at war,” and the government officially proclaimed a “state of war” the following day.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defense, ordered a complete siege of Gaza on October 9, stating there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” This was followed by a statement from then-Minister of Energy, Israel Katz, on the same day confirming the extreme blockade of Gaza and the severance of basic goods necessary for rights-essential public services to function: “I ordered that the water supply be immediately cut off from Israel to Gaza. Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday. What was will not be.”

On October 10, Gallant said of Israel’s war plans:

This is the ISIS of Gaza. This is what we are fighting against. Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything [even] if it doesn’t take one day, it will take…weeks, or even months, we will reach all places.

Human Rights Watch interviewees described watching in horror as their residential buildings and surrounding areas came under attack. They recounted their escape in panic, amidst scenes of carnage and destruction, having themselves suffered or witnessed injuries and seeing their loved ones killed. Most said they saw airstrikes and bombardments and heard hostilities behind and ahead of them as they fled. At the time, the Israeli military spokesperson, R. Adm. Daniel Hagari, declared their intention to “restore security to the people of Israel” stating that “Hamas are hiding among Gazan civilians, inside Gazan homes and schools, hospitals and mosques… Israel will target Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists wherever they will be in Gaza. We will do whatever it takes…”

Anas, a 48-year-old man with a physical disability from al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Rimal and north of Wadi Gaza, described how a building he estimated was one meter from his home, and a few meters from a nearby market, was hit in the morning of October 9. Anas said he did not receive a warning before this attack, which took place before the general October 13, 2023 evacuation order. He said he had to pull himself and several of his seven children from the rubble of his home:

It was maybe 10:30 a.m., my wife was up and preparing breakfast, we were just doing our daily routine – suddenly we heard a huge noise. There was so much dust. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t see much because of the dust.… I had to clear myself from the rubble. I started pulling my kids from the rubble.

Two of Anas’ children had gone to the market that morning to buy sweets:

I went looking for my missing kids, looking all over the place, asking my neighbors. It was chaos. People were telling me different things. Some were saying they were under the rubble. It took me from 10:30 a.m. until 1:00 a.m. the next day to find out where they were. I found out eventually that some people had taken my daughter to al-Shifa hospital. She had shrapnel in her eyes and her leg was injured.

After finding both of his children, Anas sought shelter in a relative’s home, four streets away from his own. Four days later, another apparent Israeli attack flattened a building 200 meters from that place, he said, forcing them to flee to another location.

By the time Israel issued its first mass evacuation order on October 13, 2023, government officials had already stated that they intended to enforce a total siege that would make civilians unable to meet their humanitarian needs. Declaring that Israel would “continue to tighten the siege until the Hamas threat to Israel and the world is removed,” then-Minister of Energy Katz on October 11 said:

For years we supplied Gaza with electricity, water, and fuel. Instead of saying thank you, they sent thousands of human animals to slaughter, murder, rape and kidnap babies, women and the elderly – that’s why we decided to stop the flow of water, electricity and fuel and now their local power station has collapsed and there is no electricity in Gaza.

The UN special rapporteur on internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur, estimated that 423,000 people had already been forcibly driven from their homes before October 13, 2023.

The October 13 Evacuation Order and Israel’s Evacuation System

October 13 Evacuation Order

Click to expand Image A map illustrating the Israeli military evacuation order issued on October 13, 2023 ordering 1.1 million Palestinians to move from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip. © 2024 Copernicus Sentinel Data. Graphics © 2024 Human Rights Watch

On October 13, 2023, the Israeli military ordered all the residents of northern Gaza – more than a million people – to evacuate to the south. Written in broad and compulsory terms, instructing the population to leave the entire area of northern Gaza, this directive served as an order to evacuate rather than a specific warning of an imminent attack. They issued this order by airdropping leaflets, posting on social media channels, on television broadcasts, and through text messages and phone calls. Just before midnight on October 12, team leaders of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Safety and Security in Gaza were told by Israeli military that this evacuation would have to take place within twenty-four hours. Human Rights Watch could not find this time period referenced in other evacuation orders delivered on October 13, 2023 and Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN that any deadline “may slip.” Israel justified the mass evacuation order as being for the safety of the civilian population and stated military reason for displacing the population was centered on the presence of Hamas fighters and military infrastructure, including Hamas’ extensive tunnel infrastructure, which the Israeli military identified as a threat. Israel’s evacuation order claimed that Hamas fighters were utilizing civilian areas for military purposes, thereby necessitating the displacement of civilians to minimize casualties during military operations.

On the same day, however, the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, stated:

It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up; they could have fought against that evil regime…

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued the following statement calling on the Israeli authorities to rescind the order:

[The] order by the Israel Defense Forces to Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate their homes within 24 hours was dangerous and deeply troubling. Any demand for a mass evacuation on extremely short notice could have devastating humanitarian consequences. The evacuation order applies to approximately 1.1 million people. It applies to a territory that is already besieged, under aerial bombardment and without fuel, electricity, water, and food…. As secretary general of the United Nations, I appeal to Israeli authorities to reconsider.

The UN special rapporteur on internally displaced persons condemned the evacuation order as a potential crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law:

Forcible population transfers constitute a crime against humanity, and collective punishment is prohibited under international humanitarian law…

It is inconceivable that more than half of Gaza’s population could traverse an active war zone, without devastating humanitarian consequences, particularly while deprived of essential supplies and basic services.

Israel’s Evacuation System

The October 13, 2023 order forms part of what Human Rights Watch has termed an “evacuation system” that combines evacuation orders and directives to Palestinians in Gaza to move from their homes and other places of refuge to evacuation areas and warnings that specific areas or buildings would be under attack.

Advance warnings are treated differently to evacuation orders under international humanitarian law (IHL). A warning relates to the IHL obligation to give advanced and effective warning of impending targeted attacks that might affect a civilian population, unless the situation does not permit it. The primary purpose of advance warnings is to allow civilians sufficient time to leave an area or take cover to reduce civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects. Advance warnings are typically issued shortly before an attack is carried out, assuming that the tactical situation permits such a warning without compromising the military operation.

A lawful evacuation order is an exception to the general prohibition on arbitrarily displacing people from their homes and usually issued by a military or governmental authority for the removal of civilians from certain areas where there is a high risk of conflict or danger. These orders can be issued in anticipation of military operations that may last over a more extended period or in response to ongoing or expected threats, such as sustained bombings or other forms of hostilities. Lawful evacuation orders would aim to safeguard the civilian population by moving them to safer locations. There is a legal requirement on parties to an armed conflict to remove civilians and civilian objects under their “control” from the vicinity of military objects, to the extent this is feasible.

In this way, advance warnings are specific to imminent attacks and aim to reduce harm from a specific operation. On the other hand, evacuation orders are broader, involving relocation due to sustained or significant threats. Advance warnings are typically immediate and short-term, linked to specific military actions. In contrast, evacuation orders may involve longer-term displacement and are not necessarily linked to a single specific action. While linked, both correspond to different legal standards and the law on evacuation sets a much higher standard compared with the obligation to give an effective warning. An evacuation order is also an instruction.

Israel itself has argued that its practices form part of a coherent humanitarian effort to protect civilian lives and has explained this as part of its oral argument at the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures hearings on January 12, 2024:

The IDF [Israeli military] maintains a Civilian Harm Mitigation Unit to undertake this task. It works full-time to provide advance notice of areas in which the IDF [Israeli military] intends to intensify its activities, co-ordinate travel routes for civilians and secure these routes. This unit has developed a detailed map so that specific areas can be temporarily evacuated, instead of evacuating entire areas…The IDF [Israeli military] also enacts localized pauses in its operations to allow civilians to move. It does this even though Hamas does not agree to do the same and has even attacked IDF [Israeli military] forces securing humanitarian corridors…The IDF [Israeli military] employs a range of additional measures in accordance with the obligation to take precautionary measures under international humanitarian law. For example, it provides effective advance warnings of attacks where circumstances permit. To date, the IDF [Israeli military] has dropped millions of leaflets over areas of expected attacks with instructions to evacuate and how to do so, broadcast countless messages over radio and through social media warning civilians to distance themselves from Hamas operations, and made over 70,000 individual phone calls, including to occupants of the targets, warning them of impending attacks.

While Human Rights Watch notes that both evacuation orders and warnings fall under the umbrella of Israel’s evacuation system, it is beyond the scope of this report to undertake an investigation of individual attacks that took place in Gaza, the legality of these attacks, and the effectiveness of warnings given to people in the attacked locations. This report covers an assessment of the evacuation orders given by Israel.

As already noted, the displacement of Palestinians can only be justified as a lawful evacuation if there are imperative military reasons or if the security of civilians requires it. Israel would also have to ensure that displacement protections were in place and that displacement occurred in a manner consistent with returning the population after the threat is no longer present and consistent with the protection of the civilians’ human rights.

The following section presents Human Rights Watch’s analysis showing that the evacuation system gave instructions through unreliable means that were unclear, inaccurate, and contradictory, making it very difficult for civilians to know where or when to move. Where evacuation orders did suggest a destination or direction of movement, the orders gave far too little time for over one million people to move through what was already an active conflict zone; both the routes and the destinations were often unsafe. Not only was there no safe place in Gaza, but these destinations and routes also came under attack during hostilities.

Israel did not put in place protections. Instead, through the widespread destruction of humanitarian resources, such as hospitals, bakeries, and agricultural land and its stated policy of cutting off all people in Gaza from resources essential to the realization of their human rights, such as water and electricity, Israel intentionally reduced the already limited ability of Palestinian civilians in Gaza to meet their own needs, leading to a humanitarian crisis where children are now dying from starvation.

Israel’s widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including residential areas, agricultural land, and cultural buildings, rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable, is also in direct conflict with its obligations to conduct its operations in a manner consistent with civilians returning.

Israel’s Harmful Evacuation System

While Israel has claimed that its “evacuation orders” were an attempt to protect Palestinian civilians, our study reveals that…the “humanitarian measures” employed by the Israeli military have failed to provide protection for the Palestinian civilian population…but rather have amplified the forced transfer and mass displacement of Palestinians.

― Forensic Architecture, “Humanitarian Violence”

This section will examine how Israel’s evacuation system did not move Palestinian civilians in conditions of “safety” as required by international humanitarian law (IHL).

Israeli authorities used various platforms to disseminate evacuation orders. These can be classified into two categories: first, orders disseminated for passive reception, such as airdropped leaflets, phone calls, SMS messages, or drone loudspeakers; second, orders people had to seek out actively by checking websites, social media platforms, or television and radio broadcasts.

The blanket evacuation order, issued on October 13, 2023, contained one central instruction to residents of northern Gaza: Go south. Israeli authorities disseminated this order on their official social media channels and television programs, through airdropped leaflets, and via phone calls and SMS messages. Airdropped leaflets included a rudimentary map of Gaza indicating where civilians should move.

Subsequent evacuation orders became more specific, calling for particular neighborhoods to evacuate often along with maps with arrows pointing in the direction to flee. However, due to the size and scale of the maps shared, it was not always possible for the reader to know if they were in an area slated for evacuation.

On December 1, the Israeli military published an online map on its website, that could be accessed using a QR code from a mobile phone, that divided Gaza into a grid of 620 numbered blocks, allowing the user to know in which of these blocks they are located, using the location services of their phone, assuming one had a phone with sufficient battery charge and internet connection. The Israeli military then continued to publish leaflets and social media posts indicating the blocks slated for evacuation.

Recreation of the Grid Block Map Originally Published by the Israeli Military on December 1, 2023

Between the first evacuation order on October 8, 2023 and August 31, 2024, Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed 184 distinct evacuation orders that the Israeli government posted to official social media accounts, airdropped as leaflets, or delivered by SMS to the residents of Gaza.

On March 13, 2024, Forensic Architecture, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Al-Haq issued a joint report analyzing the Israeli evacuation system from October 8, 2023 until February 16, 2024 and found that it “created confusion and panic by providing unclear, incorrect, inconsistent, elastic, unspecified, conflicting, and inaccessible instructions, formats, names and communication protocols.”

Human Rights Watch research, presented below, supports these findings. Our findings show that faulty information was rife across these orders they were often inaccurate or inconsistent across platforms and sowed confusion about when, where, and how people should evacuate. This resulted in a fearful and chaotic atmosphere that oftentimes put Palestinians in harm’s way.

Click to expand Image A group of Palestinians read a warning leaflet dropped by Israeli warplanes on them in Rafah in southern Gaza, May 6, 2024 © 2024 Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Reliance on Network Connections

On December 1, the day the online map was published, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) observed, “It is unclear how those residing in Gaza would access the map without electricity and amid recurrent telecommunications cuts.”

Almost immediately after October 7, 2023, telephone and internet services in Gaza began experiencing significant disruptions. Continuous disruptions in communication networks are a result of damage to core communications infrastructure, cuts to electricity, fuel blockades, and apparently deliberate shutdowns through technical measures by Israeli authorities.

Telecommunications services in Gaza had already been severely degraded since the start of the hostilities on October 7. Widespread phone and internet outages occurred in Gaza on October 27, 2023, amid a concerted Israeli bombardment, almost entirely cutting off the 2.2 million residents from the outside world.

Since the start of the conflict, Gaza has suffered multiple communication blackouts, usually the result of attacks impacting communications infrastructure. The longest blackout lasted a week in January 2024 when all telecommunications services throughout Gaza were down. On January 22, 2024, Paltel, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and one of the few remaining operational providers in Gaza, posted on X that telecom services in Gaza were down for the tenth time since October 7, 2023. These periods of blacked out telecom services lasted between one day to a week. During these blackouts, the Israeli military continued to issue evacuation orders online.

Inadequacies of Online Evacuation Orders

Human Rights Watch found that the information contained in evacuation orders posted online was sometimes inaccurate and, in some cases, changed throughout the day, which would mean requiring constant connectivity and the foresight to check and recheck information.

Human Rights Watch found multiple discrepancies among the three main social media channels Israeli authorities used to disseminate evacuation information. For example, an October 21 evacuation order telling Khirbet Ikhza’a residents to move to al-Mawasi appeared only on the Facebook account of the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), not on Israel’s other two social media platforms. This was the only order posted online that addressed residents of southern Gaza at a time when evacuation instructions exclusively targeted those in the north.

Human Rights Watch identified 58 occasions in which an evacuation order posted on one social media channel was not posted on one or both of the other two channels. Ten of these posts contained crucial information, for instance announcing for the first time a new neighborhood or block slated for evacuation. Examples include an October 21 COGAT Facebook page announcement that warned that anyone within a newly designated “war zone” area within 1,000 meters of the border fence “puts their life in danger.” It took another four days for this announcement to be posted on the Israeli military’s Arabic Spokesperson’s X account and it was never posted on his Facebook account.

Errors and Confusion Over Where People Should Evacuate

In addition to the problems in the dissemination of evacuation orders outlined above, Human Rights Watch found 16 instances where evacuation messages themselves contained missing or contradictory instructions as to the locations from which and to which people were meant to evacuate or where the labeling, marking, or wording on the maps accompanying the order did not align with the text.

In 12 cases, more than one error occurred on the same evacuation order.

On December 3, the Israeli military posted an evacuation order on X at 6:36 a.m. with detailed information and a map showing residents in certain blocks in Khan Younis where they should go. Nearly nine hours later, at 2:58 p.m., the Israeli military corrected the post with a new map showing a different area where civilians were directed to go. Other errors in the same December 3 evacuation order, however, remained uncorrected. The caption in the X post instructed people living in blocks 36, 38 through 54, and 219 through 221 to evacuate, but the heading on the map provided a different list of block numbers: 36, 47 through 54, and 221 through 219, which resulted in the omission of nine blocks. Additionally, blocks 55, 99, and 104 were highlighted on the map despite not being listed either in the heading or the caption of the post.

Click to expand Image Screenshot of an evacuation order shared by Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s spokesperson for Arab media, on his X account on December 3, 2023, at 6.36 a.m. local time. (Left). Screenshot of a correction shared by Lt. Col. Adraee on X on December 3 at 2:58 p.m. local time for the December 3 order with the caption. “**Note: The map that we issued this morning mixed up Tal al-Sultan and Al-Shabura Camp. The error has been corrected and the attached map is the correct one. Instructions have not been changed”. (Top right) An enlarged image of the map shared with the correction to the December 3 post, showing the updated locations for Tal al-Sultan and Al-Shabura Camp. (Bottom right) © 2023 Avichay Adraee

According to population figures inadvertently included in the source code of the Israeli military’s evacuation webpage, as previously reported by Human Rights Watch, the blocks in Khan Younis listed in the heading on the map had a total population of 86,177 people. Based on this data there were approximately 23,452 people in the nine omitted blocks at the time the data was collected. There were also three additional blocks highlighted on the evacuation map that were not included in the caption or header, representing another 8,137 people. It is not known by Human Rights Watch how current or accurate this population data is, however, according to these figures, it would mean that more than 31,000 people did not receive a comprehensive evacuation order. According to the UN, the area designated for evacuation covered 20 percent of Khan Younis and had nearly 117,000 residents.

In 20 cases, highlighted areas on the maps did not cover blocks to be evacuated in a precise way and some blocks were only partially highlighted, rendering the question over who exactly should evacuate unclear.

On July 1, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for neighborhoods in eastern Khan Younis and Rafah, including al-Fukhari where the European Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in southern Gaza, is located. The next morning, the Israeli military and COGAT issued a clarification in English on their X accounts stating that the hospital was not subject to evacuation. The COGAT Arabic Facebook page also updated the evacuation order post to include the clarification. However, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson did not share any of the clarifications on any of his social media accounts. The Israeli military issued these clarifications hours after humanitarian groups had published pleas to rescind the order to evacuate the hospital, and news reports circulated online of the hospital being evacuated of patients, staff and essential equipment, for instance, on the back of large lorries. By the time the clarifications were issued, staff and patients had reportedly already started to flee the hospital.

A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that the map accompanying the December 3 evacuation order was rotated contrary to convention, with north positioned on the left, making the map “misleading.” Human Rights Watch also found that the subsequent block maps released by the Israeli military were rotated in the same way and none of them included a north arrow, which is commonplace on maps in order to communicate their orientation to the user. In the absence of a north arrow, a map’s user would typically assume that the top of the map is north. However, since the maps’ rotations were distorted, this assumption was often invalid, creating additional confusion about the direction in which civilians should flee for their safety. For example, the June 27 evacuation order contains an arrow pointing to the evacuation area on the map and instructs people to move south. However, without the north arrow, a user could have perceived the instruction to move west – as the arrow is pointing to the left of the map – which is usually read as to the west on a conventional map.

A day after the Israeli military issued the online map of the blocks, on December 2, they also issued a “neighborhood-based map” on their website, which they removed later that same day.

Separately, also on December 2, Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Adraee, posted an evacuation order on X for residents in the south and north of Gaza. The order was accompanied by five maps; each highlighted different blocks whose residents were instructed to evacuate and showing them, using arrows, where they should go. One of the highlighted areas that the maps visually instructed people to evacuate from included al-Fukhari neighborhood (this instruction was conveyed visually through the map but not specifically stated in the accompanying text). Yet less than 24 hours later, on December 3 and December 4, the same X account listed a well-known IDP shelter in al-Fukhari as one of the areas people should move to for their safety. Similarly, on July 7, the Israeli military instructed residents of Gaza to evacuate to “known shelters” in the west of Gaza City. Less than 24 hours later on July 8, the Israeli military this time ordered neighborhoods in the west of Gaza City to evacuate to shelters in Deir al-Balah, in the south.

Click to expand Image Screenshot of the evacuation order map shared by Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Adraee on his X account on July 7, 2024 at 5. 51 p.m. local time instructing residents of Gaza to evacuate to “known shelters” in the west of Gaza City. (Top). Screenshot of the evacuation order map shared by Lt. Col. Adraee on his X account on July 8, 2024, instructing neighborhoods in the west of Gaza City to evacuate to shelters in Deir al-Balah. (Bottom) The comparison of the evacuation order maps shows how residents of Gaza were instructed to evacuate to west of Gaza City, and ordered the leave the area again in less than 24 hours. © 2024 Avichay Adraee

Click to expand Image Tents housing internally displaced Palestinians crowding the beach and the Mediterranean shoreline in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on May 28, 2024. © 2024 Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AP

An analysis published by CNN points to other flaws related to the aforementioned December 2 evacuation order posted by Lt. Col. Adraee and the contradictions in Israeli military guidance. CNN’s analysis shows that certain blocks, such as blocks 720 and 717, are presented simultaneously as safe and unsafe on the two maps included in the same post calling for evacuation of residents in northern Gaza.

Errors and Confusion Over When People Should Evacuate

Human Rights Watch reviewed and verified the time windows given to Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate and found irregularities that rendered the evacuation orders unpredictable and confusing.

In total, 47 of the evacuation orders analyzed by Human Rights Watch contained periods of time during which people were directed to evacuate, typically between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. or 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. These included 46 orders on X and Facebook, and one via airdropped leaflet. While at the beginning of the conflict, the evacuation messages often specified timeframes for evacuation, at later stages, evacuation timeframes were mostly omitted. Aside from the twenty-four-hour period provided to the UN on October 12, the longest time window identified by Human Rights Watch was given overnight on November 5, with 10 hours 25 minutes, and the shortest time window was 2 hours and 53 minutes, issued after the evacuation window had already begun on November 13. Of the 47 evacuation orders analyzed, 26 orders were posted online after the evacuation window had already begun.

The evacuation orders also included inconsistent, intermittently changing time windows to evacuate, making it hard for people to know when it was safe to move and plan for the following days. For instance, evacuation orders on October 13, 14, and 15, told residents of Gaza City a different time to move south along Salah al-Din Road, a major north-south artery in Gaza, warning them to be off the road by 8 p.m., 4 p.m., and 1 p.m., respectively.

Insufficient Time to Respond to Evacuation Orders

You must evacuate your homes immediately and go to the south of Wadi Gaza.

– Israeli military evacuation order, October 13, 2023

International humanitarian law (IHL) does not specify a precise amount of time that an evacuation order must give civilians to leave an area, but it would be reasonable to assume that Palestinians in Gaza should have been given orders to leave in a timely manner that were feasible to follow within that timeframe, allowing civilians enough time to evacuate safely.

On October 13, Israeli forces issued a general evacuation order to all residents in Gaza north of Wadi Gaza. But even before this evacuation order was issued, a massive campaign of Israeli air strikes had, as of that same day, already killed 1,900 people in Gaza, including at least 583 children, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israeli forces also issued additional evacuation orders to people in different areas of northern Gaza that day, which had shorter or immediate time windows for evacuation. But in multiple cases, witnesses from different areas in northern Gaza told Human Rights Watch that Israeli attacks commenced in their areas either before they received these evacuation orders, or within hours of receiving them, and that the bombardments made it impossible to evacuate, regardless of whether these orders instructed them to move immediately. Civilians who remain in besieged or contested areas continue to retain their protection under the laws of war, even if they do not comply with evacuation orders. This section will not assess the lawfulness of attacks in Gaza, but the impact of the Israeli military’s evacuation orders in midst of intense bombardments.

Ghassan, a 34-year-old man, from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza – the largest of the eight refugee camps in Gaza, with over 119,540 registered residents as of 2023, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) – said the Israeli military airdropped leaflets on the camp at around noon on October 15, which he read, instructing people to evacuate for the south. He explained how he did not leave immediately because he did not know where to go, but that within a few hours, at 2:30 p.m., the Israeli military started attacking the area with explosive munitions. He described the desperation and panic of the moment:

At 2:30 p.m. on the same day [October 15] the Israeli military started bombing our area – our neighborhood [in Jabalia]. After maybe two hours from [airdropping] the paper leaflets. When the bombing started, I started running towards my building but then I saw people running out of the building. I was trying to find my family, and I kept asking people about my family. People said probably they’ve gone to a small school nearby. But I couldn’t find them there. I was asking everyone and no one could help. There was no way to contact my family because the phones didn’t work.

As described earlier in this report, in October 2023, telephone and internet services in Gaza were significantly disrupted. On the same night, Ghassan took refuge in a car with his cousin next to an UNRWA clinic and a post office in Jabalia which he said was struck in an Israeli airstrike shortly after he took refuge there:

That night I was so close to death… I saw a bright light and I completely lost consciousness for maybe 40 seconds. When I woke up, I felt something was wrong, my body was heavy. My cousin was on the driver’s side. I tried to open the car door, my body was so stressed, it was hard to open the door. I got out of the car, and people were running to me. The Israelis attacked the post office, and the car was parked next to it. I looked at my cousin; he had lost consciousness and was covered in blood. There were two ambulances and the people approached us to check on us. When I reached the ambulance, I opened the camera on my phone and saw myself full of shrapnel and blood. We didn’t know where the injuries were. People took me to the Indonesian Hospital; I had shrapnel in my back and face.

The fact that Israeli forces began intense attacks in the Jabalia refugee camp, apparently using explosive munitions with wide area effects, within a few hours of airdropping evacuation notices on the camp, could indicate that the Israeli military did not give civilians enough time to evacuate the area. On October 16, Ghassan left with his family to Rafah and at the time of interview was living in a tent next to the sea, without access to adequate food, water or sanitation facilities, or medical care.

Omar, a 35-year-old man with five children, aged between two and six, woke up at 5 a.m. on October 13 when his building in Yarmouk Street in north Gaza came under attack by what he said were Israeli airstrikes. He said he did not receive an evacuation order before the airstrikes. Human Rights Watch confirmed that the October 13 general evacuation order was shared for the first time that day at 7:15 a.m., on Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee’s Facebook account. In total, 39 members of Omar’s family were inside the building at the time, of whom four were killed, including his six-year-old son, and 12 were injured, Omar said:

The first bomb hit in between our building and the one next door and exploded and the second went through our building. The house collapsed. When the [first] bomb hit, I jumped out of my apartment and was trying to leave. When the second hit, I was on the stairs in between the floors. I could see through the walls and through the house. I saw the body of one of my nieces that looked like she had been blasted from her apartment into a neighbor’s. My brother’s wife and kids and her aunt were all completely covered under the rubble. There was no way for us to take them to the hospital.

Omar rushed those injured whom he could access to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. His heavily pregnant wife suffered severe burns as well as several broken bones. At the time of interview, Omar and his family were sheltering in a tent in a displacement camp in Khan Younis. Given the military operation in Khan Younis in December 2023, it is likely Omar and his family were subsequently forced to flee once again.

Sahar, a 42-year-old woman with an 11-year-old son, living in Beit Lahiya, a city in northern Gaza close to Israel, said she and her family left their home on October 14 “because of the excessive bombing to civilian houses, which killed entire families.” She added, “The airstrikes were close to my house, so we didn’t have a choice but to leave.” She said she received recorded telephone calls from the Israeli military to leave and read airdropped paper leaflets, but the attacks had already started:

Yes, the leaflets and recorded calls were what I understood to be evacuation orders, and yes, we wanted to follow them, but could not because the Israelis started bombing the area heavily even before the announcement. People were killed in huge numbers and in brutal ways.

Sahar went on to recall her journey to the shelter in her town amid the bombardments:

From my house to the shelter in our town, we went walking (around two kilometers), there were airstrikes while we were walking but we followed people and survived. In the shelter my child who is 11 years old knew that many of his friends and c