UN officials warned of the possibility of displacing the residents of the Gaza Strip to Egypt, in light of the displacement of the majority of the population as a result of the Israeli bombing and incursion into the Strip.
Israel forced Palestinian civilians to leave to the far south of the Strip, which led to massive overcrowding in the border city of Rafah with Egypt.
As the war entered its third month, about 85% of the population of the Gaza Strip were forced to leave their homes.
Who warns about this?
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned, in Qatar on Sunday, of growing pressure for mass exodus to Egypt.
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, repeated this on Saturday, accusing Israel of paving the way for the mass expulsion of the residents of the Gaza Strip to Egypt across the border.
In an article published by the Los Angeles Times, Lazzarini pointed to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the crowding of displaced civilians who fled the Israeli bombing and ground war near the border in the north and then the south. He said that the developments we are witnessing indicate attempts to transfer Palestinians to Egypt.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said on Wednesday in Geneva that it is important to stress that this population evacuation process should not be promoted, encouraged or imposed.
Egypt, Jordan, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have previously warned against attempts to displace the residents of Gaza, while Israel and the United States have ruled out the idea.
Will Israel force the Palestinians to leave Gaza?
A spokesman for the Coordination Authority for Civil Affairs in the Palestinian Territories (COGAT) commented: “There is, there has never been, and there will never be an Israeli plan to transfer Gazans to Egypt. This is simply not true.”
But members of the Israeli government publicly defended the hypothesis of the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip.
Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on Facebook, “Welcome to the voluntary immigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world.”
Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel also called for encouraging the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza outside the Gaza Strip, for humanitarian reasons.
Former Israeli officials suggested in television interviews that Egypt could establish vast tent cities in the Sinai desert, with international funding.
What is a legal opinion?
The expulsion of civilians is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions, which form the core of international humanitarian law.
“If this is done in the context of an armed conflict, it is a war crime,” said Sheila Paylan, an international human rights lawyer and former UN adviser.
Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, deportation or forcible transfer of population is listed as a crime against humanity.
Paylan explained that leaders do not need to make an explicit announcement about the need for people to leave for this to be considered forced deportation, stressing that if living conditions are made impossible for people, they will have no other choice.
She noted multiple successful convictions for the forced displacement of civilians, including in the Special Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court.
What is the historical context?
In 1948, more than 760,000 Palestinians were displaced during the war that broke out during the establishment of the State of Israel, and about 80% of the population of Gaza are themselves refugees or the children and grandchildren of refugees who were displaced from their homes during the Nakba.
There are also approximately 6 million Palestinian refugees in the region registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
During the 1967 war, during which Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, further displacement occurred.
What do other countries think?
Days after the outbreak of war in Gaza, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on Gazans to “steadfast and remain on their land.”
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994.
During a conference in Doha, in the presence of Guterres, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi criticized the systematic efforts made by Israel to empty Gaza of its people.
Also, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken categorically rejected the idea of expelling the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, saying that they should be able to remain in their homes while Israel fights the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).