Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), accused the Israeli occupation of seeking to expel the residents of the Gaza Strip to Egypt across the border.
He said, “The developments we are witnessing indicate attempts to transfer Palestinians to Egypt, regardless of whether they reside there or are resettled elsewhere.”
In an article in the American newspaper Los Angeles Times, Lazzarini pointed to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the increasing crowding of displaced civilians who fled the fighting near the border in the north and then the south.
The UN official believed that the widespread destruction in the northern Gaza Strip and the resulting displacement is “the first stage of this scenario,” noting that the next stage is forcing civilians to leave the city of Khan Yunis in the south, near the border with Egypt.
“If this path continues, it will lead to what many are already calling the Second Nakba,” Lazzarini said. “Gaza will no longer be the land of the Palestinians.”
He explained that “the United Nations and many member states, including the United States, strongly rejected the forcible displacement of Gazans from the Strip.”
In a related context, Lazzarini said in his statements today that “stripping the Palestinians of their humanity” allowed the international community to tolerate the ongoing Israeli occupation attacks in Gaza.
It is noteworthy that more than 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced from several areas in the Gaza Strip to the city of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
Since the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle launched by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on the 7th of last month, Israel has continued its aggression against Gaza, resulting in the martyrdom of 17,700 Palestinians and the injury of 48,780 others. While the Israeli army admitted that 426 of its soldiers and officers had been killed since the start of the war, and that 1,593 others were injured, including 255 in critical condition.
