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‘Collective Failure of Humanity’: Nearly 118 Million Refugees Violently Displaced Worldwide
The number of people who were forcibly displaced at the end of last year dropped from 2024 levels, but that change was largely driven by people who were forced to return home, sometimes to precarious conditions.
Jun 11, 2026
The number of people forcibly displaced around the world fell last year for the first time in years, dropping by more than 5 million—but with that trend driven in part by countries that have forced refugees to return home, often to precarious or dangerous conditions, advocacy groups warned that the world's refugee and displacement crises are far from being solved.
At the end of last year, 117.8 million people were forcibly displaced around the world, according to data released Thursday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). That number includes 41.6 million refugees, 9 million asylum-seekers, and 68.7 million internally displaced people.
While the number of displaced people fell from 123.2 million in 2024, the UNHCR emphasized that the change reflected "a sharp increase in the returns of refugees, mostly to Afghanistan, Syria, and Sudan."
"Many of the returns occurred under adverse circumstances and the reintegration conditions remain extremely challenging," said the agency.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said that "in Afghanistan, millions were forcibly returned from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, and in [the Democratic Republic of] Congo some displacement camps were evacuated at gunpoint, sending thousands of families back to homes that no longer exist."
Of 2.9 million Afghans who were no longer considered forcibly displaced last year, most of their returns to their home country were "involuntary in nature due to changes in the policies of host countries."
In the US, the Trump administration last year terminated Temporary Protected Status for Afghan nationals, between 9,500 and 11,700 of whom were legally residing in the US. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans were deported from Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan last year.
"The first fall in global displacement in over a decade should be good news. Instead, it reflects misery on a historic scale," said David Milliband, president of the International Rescue Committee. "These numbers tell a story of both forced returns and forced displacement. People are returning to countries mired in crisis, most with no choice, with every route to safety collapsed around them."
The number of refugees who were successfully resettled dropped precipitously last year along with the number of people who were classified as displaced. Just 81,800 people found new homes through resettlement programs or sponsorship pathways, representing a year-on-year drop of more than half.
The top countries that continued to host refugees last year were Colombia, Turkey, and Germany, and more than 70% of refugees came from just six countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
Egeland emphasized that while the number of forcibly displaced people fell last year, "the number of people who have fled their home because of violence and conflict has nearly tripled over the last 15 years."
"The 117.8 million people now violently displaced around the globe would constitute the world’s 13th-largest country by population. Larger than Egypt, Germany, or the UK. A human toll of vast proportions, and a collective failure of humanity," said Egeland.
The numbers released by UNHCR indicated that while millions "continued to be uprooted" last year, "many more endured protracted crises with no solution in sight. The world continues to fail civilians caught by conflict and violence."
UNHCR warned that among those who remain forcibly displaced, 7 in 10 refugees have been exiled from their homes for at least five years with little prospect of ever leaving refugee camps with precarious living conditions.
“For too many refugees, displacement starts as a lifeline but lasts a lifetime," said Barham Salih, the UN high commissioner for refugees. "Humanitarian aid saves lives, but it is not the end point and does not enable refugees to become active agents in control of their futures. We need a paradigm shift that creates a new sense of hope and opportunity for people fleeing war and persecution."
Salih called for a reduction by more than half, over the next decade, in the number of refugees who are reliant on humanitarian assistance and are living in temporary shelters.
"The initiative would expand opportunities for voluntary returns, humanitarian visas, and relocation, while transitioning refugees from aid dependency to self-reliance through access to education, healthcare, financial services, and labor markets," said the UNHCR.
The large numbers of people who have been forced from their homes—and in a rising number of cases, forced to return home under duress—"are almost impossible to comprehend," said Egeland. "And as an increasingly nationalistic world becomes increasingly desensitized to what it truly means to be forced to flee home, the gap between decision makers and donors and displaced people continues to widen. This cannot be accepted as the new normal."
“As humanitarians our work is to support displaced people in their hour of greatest need," he added. “But we cannot do this without a world that is willing to stand up for humanity... We must support diplomatic solutions to end crisis, and fund aid to relieve suffering. We must protect civilians and stand up for international humanitarian law. We must all remember our humanity.”
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Report Details Israeli Use of Sexual Violence to Force Palestinians From West Bank Homes
"Sexual violence is not incidental to this crisis. It is one of the mechanisms driving people from their land," said one contributor to the new report.
Apr 21, 2026
A report published Tuesday by an international human rights consortium details how Israeli soldiers and settlers are weaponizing sexual violence to facilitate the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the illegally occupied West Bank.
The report, published by the West Bank Protection Consortium (WBPC)—which is led by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and funded by donors including 13 European nations—found that "more than 70% of displaced households interviewed identified threats to women and children, particularly sexualized violence, as the decisive reason for leaving" their homes in the West Bank of Palestine.
The West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and is the site of an accelerating campaign of US-backed deadly ethnic cleansing dating back to 1947.
Palestinians interviewed for the report described "escalating patterns of sexual harassment in Area C"—the roughly 60% of the West Bank that, under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, is under full Israeli control—"including sexualized insults and gestures, indecent exposure, intimidation, threats of sexual violence, and surveillance of intimate spaces such as bedrooms."
"Participants in multiple locations described settlers exposing themselves, making threats of rape, and stalking women as they walked to latrines," the report continued.
"Men and boys also experience sexualized humiliation, forced nudity, and sexualized threats," the publication notes. "In Wadi al-Seeq, after the community was forcibly displaced, three men reported that settlers detained them and attempted to sexually assault one man with a broomstick while he was blindfolded. They described forced stripping, beatings, burning and being urinated on, and said perpetrators circulated images of the abuse."
"Similar abuses have also been reported elsewhere," WBPC continued. "In the Bethlehem governorate, testimony collected during a key informant interview described two 15-year-old boys herding cattle whom settlers attacked, beat, blindfolded, and stripped. The account said one boy was urinated on and the other sustained a leg fracture."
"In another Palestinian Bedouin community in the Jordan Valley... a violent settler raid was reported in which witnesses state that a Palestinian man was subjected to severe sexual assault in front of his family," the report states. "Testimonies further indicate that women and girls were beaten, children were threatened with death, and threats of rape were made."
Allegra Pacheco, WBPC's chief of party, said in a statement Monday that “this is how communities are emptied: not in a single moment, but through repeated attacks, fear inside the home, and pressure that makes ordinary life impossible."
In Khirbet Wadi al-Rakhim, one Palestinian reported that "an identified settler sexually harassed them and threatened them with reference to the Sde Teiman detention facility," the notorious prison in the Negev Desert where former Palestinian prisoners, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, and Israeli medical professionals have said they witnessed torture and other abuse of detainees ranging in age from children to the elderly.
These abuses include severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations, alleged rape and sexual assault by male and female soldiers, electrocution, mauling by dogs, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, and other torture. The IDF is investigating the deaths of dozens of Palestinians at Sde Teiman, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
NRC said Monday that in the West Bank, "displacement reshapes every aspect of life."
"Households reported the impact of prolonged exposure to settler violence, including the sexualized abuse documented in the report," the group noted, adding that "92% of affected households interviewed lost access to land, 88% lost their homes, and 84% lost essential assets."
"More than half lost livelihoods, while 40% of children lost access to education," NRC added. "Women report severe psychological distress at striking rates, alongside ongoing fear, instability, and exposure to further violence after relocation."
Pacheco said that "sexual violence is not incidental to this crisis. It is one of the mechanisms driving people from their land."
“The report documents how perpetrators target women, men, and children in ways that fracture families and deprive communities of the ability to remain," she added. "When coercive conditions leave people with no genuine choice but to leave, this amounts to forcible transfer under international law.”
The WBPC report also highlights that "these abuses occur within a broader environment shaped by systematic discrimination and persistent impunity," an observation underscored by the lack of punishment or slaps on the wrist for Israeli soldiers and settlers who harm Palestinians.
Israel must be held to account for its barbaric crimes. The horrifying reports of the IDF's sexual violence against women & girls in the West Bank demand immediate action. Today, I raised this with the Foreign Secretary - we must punish perpetrators and ensure justice.
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— Dr Rosena Allin-Khan MP (@drrosena.bsky.social) April 21, 2026 at 5:50 AM
Previous reports by groups including United Nations agencies have detailed Israeli sexual violence against Palestinians, including a March 2025 UN publication that found "sexual and gender-based violence—which has risen in frequency and severity—is being perpetrated across the occupied Palestinian territory as a strategy of war for Israel to dominate and destroy the Palestinian people."
An August 2025 investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation featured Palestinian boys kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza who said they suffered or witnessed sexual torture committed by their jailers.
Last year, Israel blocked a request from UN sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid attendant scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.
Sexual violence committed by Israelis against Palestinians is as old as the modern state of Israel itself.
Israeli filmmaker Alon Schwarz's 2022 documentary Tantura—which concerns the 1948 massacre and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian residents from the village after which the film is named—features interviews with Israeli veterans who described the rape of Palestinian women and children. One of the Israelis gleefully recounted the rape of a child.
A former Israeli soldier recounts the 1948 Tantura events
He refers to serious abuses against civilians, including an assault on a minor
He admits to killings without knowing the exact number of victims pic.twitter.com/ub5LHIdYAY
— ADI ALARDAH (@alardah91) April 9, 2026
When IDF reservists were arrested on suspicion of gang-raping of a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman after video footage of the alleged assault went viral, a mob of right-wing Israelis whose members included senior government officials stormed the prison in a failed bid to free the suspects.
Others, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, demanded a probe—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked the video. Meanwhile, Israelis advocating legalized torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners were given nationwide platforms to air their views during the Sde Teiman scandal.
The IDF later dismissed the indictments of the accused Sde Teiman rapists.
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Critics Warn Israeli Ban on Aid Groups in Gaza 'Will Cost the Lives of Palestinians'
"Such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation worse for the people of Gaza," said the United Nations human rights chief.
Dec 31, 2025
Human rights defenders warned Wednesday that a new Israeli ban on dozens of international humanitarian groups from operating in Gaza will have a "catastrophic" impact on Palestinians already reeling from more than two years of Israel's genocidal war and siege.
The government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—announced Tuesday that 25 humanitarian groups would be suspended from operating in Gaza starting January 1 if they did not comply with new requirements including providing detailed information on their staff, funding, and operations.
Israeli authorities say, largely without evidence, that the new rules are needed because some humanitarian workers are terrorists, and because Hamas is diverting aid—a claim refuted by Israeli military officials.
By Wednesday, the number of banned groups increased to 37. Targeted groups include ActionAid, Handicap International, Doctors Without Borders sections from six European countries, two Oxfam chapters, International Rescue Committee, American Friends Service Committee, World Vision International, Norwegian Refugee Council, Mercy Corps, Defense for Children International, two Caritas branches, and CARE.
"Israel’s suspension of numerous aid agencies from Gaza is outrageous," United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said Wednesday in Geneva. "This is the latest in a pattern of unlawful restrictions on humanitarian access, including Israel’s ban on UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, as well as attacks on Israeli and Palestinian NGOs amid broader access issues faced by the UN and other humanitarians."
"I urge all states, in particular those with influence, to take urgent steps and insist that Israel immediately allows aid to get into Gaza unhindered," Türk continued. "Such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation even worse for the people of Gaza."
"I remind the Israeli authorities of their obligation under international law to ensure the essential supplies of daily life in Gaza, including by allowing and facilitating humanitarian relief," he added.
European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness, and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib said Wednesday that Israel's move "means blocking life-saving aid."
"The [European Union] has been clear: The NGO registration law can not be implemented in its current form," Lahbib added. "All barriers to humanitarian access must be lifted."
British Member of Parliament Andrew Pakes (Labour-Peterborough) said on social media that "the Israeli government banning desperately needed aid from Gaza is not a sign of a working ceasefire."
"This, at a time of extreme weather and lack of shelter," he added. "We need accountability more than ever. And immediate help to save lives."
Doctors Without Borders—which also goes by its French acronym, MSF—told Reuters Tuesday that "if MSF is prevented from working in Gaza, it will deprive hundreds of thousands of people from accessing medical care."
Norwegian Refugee Council spokesperson Shaina Low said, "At a time when needs in Gaza far exceed the available aid and services, Israel has and will continue to block life-saving aid from entering."
British emergency physician Dr. James Smith—a health activist with Medact and the People's Health Movement and member of the Global Sumud Flotilla—told Al Jazeera Wednesday that many of the proscribed groups "have been working in Gaza for decades."
Smith noted that Doctors Without Borders this year "managed more than 22,000 operations," adding that "if international NGOs were de-registered, then approximately a third of healthcare facilities" in Gaza "would be forced to immediately close."
This, after Gaza's healthcare infrastructure has been systematically obliterated by Israel's assault and siege.
"It's going to be catastrophic," warned Smith. "A situation that is already horrific will be made more horrific. The changes will be immediate, and they will be ruthless."
Smith called the aid group ban "an extension of Israel's longstanding strategy of titrating humanitarian access and humanitarian services as a core pillar of the occupation and of the genocide."
Since 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza, severely limiting the entry and exit of people and goods into the Palestinian exclave. The blockade was tightened even further when Israel imposed a "complete siege" on the strip following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
According to UN data, Israeli forces have killed at least 579 aid workers—including nearly 400 UNRWA staffers—since October 2023. Israeli bombs and bullets have also killed over 1,700 health and medical workers, upward of 140 civil defense personnel, and more than 250 journalists.
Overall, Israel's war and siege have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza, and most Gazans forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
In recent weeks, more than a dozen Palestinians, including numerous children and infants, have died of hypothermia.
On Tuesday, Red Crescent Society in Gaza warned of a growing outbreak of hepatitis A and gastroenteritis caused by contaminated drinking water.
The International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—last year issued a provisional ruling ordering Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and affirming an earlier order to prevent genocidal acts. Israel has been accused of ignoring these and other ICJ orders.
Responding to the Israeli ban, Refugees International vice president for programs and policy Hardin Lang said in a statement Tuesday that "this action will cost the lives of Palestinians."
"Gaza is in the heart of winter, with hundreds of thousands of people living in makeshift shelters, damaged buildings, or the open air after repeated displacement," Lang noted. "Removing these humanitarian organizations now will deepen exposure, illness, and preventable deaths. The targeted organizations provide much of the core relief capacity in Gaza, particularly on healthcare services."
"The suspension is not motivated by a sincere desire to prevent diversion of aid; it is a pretext to further restrict aid to Gaza while silencing independent aid organizations," he continued. "The Israeli government’s broad claims about systemic aid diversion have never been backed up with credible evidence—as even senior US government officials have publicly acknowledged."
"Under US and international law, parties to a conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of impartial humanitarian relief," Lang added.
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Aid Groups Demand 'Decisive Action' From World Leaders to Stop Israel's Genocide in Gaza
Leaders of 22 NGOs say if nations continue to treat their legal obligations to oppose genocide "as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing."
Sep 17, 2025
The heads of 22 international aid organizations on Wednesday issued a joint statement following a UN commission's finding that Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Gaza Strip, which calls on governments worldwide to end their complicity with the carnage by intervening forcefully to halt the brutal assault on the Palestinian people that has left many tens of thousands dead and the entirety of the population living under famine conditions and constant bombardment with no safe place to seek refuge.
While the nearly two dozen groups who backed the statement—including ActionAid International, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Norwegian Refugee Council—have tirelessly advocated for an end to the carnage in Gaza, the UN Commission of Inquiry report released Tuesday bolstered their calls that what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza is nothing short of "genocidal."
"The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable," the Wednesday joint statement reads. "As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake."
Noting the Israeli military's ground invasion of Gaza City this week, which requires the forced displacement of approximately a million people in the city with nowhere to safely go, the group warns that "we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable."
Despite months and months of repeated calls to intervene, Israel's allies—including the United States and others—have refused to withdraw their support for Israel's military offensive and a humanitarian blockade that has resulted in mass starvation. The US government, Israel's most powerful ally and chief supplier of weapons, has continued to send arms and the Trump administration defends the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers on the world stage.
In their declaration, the groups said the international community must act forcefully now or be forever remembered in history as complicit.
"The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security," the statement reads. "If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing."
On Tuesday, in response to the UN commission report, others made similar arguments.
“The Commission of Inquiry joins a growing number of international human rights bodies and experts in concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, which was not among the signers of Wednesday's letter but has echoed its message time and again.
“There is no more time for excuses: as the evidence of Israel’s genocide continues to mount the international community cannot claim they didn’t know. This report must compel states to take immediate action and fulfill their legal and moral obligation to halt Israel’s genocide. The international community, especially those states with influence on Israel, must exert all possible diplomatic, economic, and political pressure to ensure an immediate and lasting ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza.
The statement in full, along with the signatories, follows:
As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide.
With this finding, the Commission joins a growing number of human rights organisations and leaders globally, and within Israel.
The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake.
Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City – home to nearly one million people – we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable.
About 65,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble that has replaced Gaza’s once lively streets.
Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced - most of them multiple times - into increasingly shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life.
More than half a million people are starving. Famine has been declared and is spreading. The cumulative impact of hunger and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.
Throughout Gaza, entire cities have been razed to the ground, along with their life-sustaining public infrastructure, such as hospitals and water treatment plants. Agricultural land has been systemically destroyed.
If the facts and numbers aren’t enough, we have harrowing story upon harrowing story.
Since the Israeli military tightened its siege six months ago, blocking food, fuel, and medicine, we witnessed children and families waste away from starvation as famine took hold. Our colleagues too have been impacted.
Many of us have been into Gaza. We have met countless Palestinians who have lost limbs as a result of Israel’s bombardment. We have personally met children so traumatized by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep. Some cannot speak. Others have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven.
We have met families who eat animal food to survive and boil leaves as a meal for their children.
Yet world leaders fail to act. Facts are ignored. Testimony is cast aside. And more people are killed as a direct consequence.
Our organisations, together with Palestinian civil society groups, the UN, and Israeli human rights organisations, can only do so much. We have tirelessly tried to defend the rights of the people of Gaza and sustain humanitarian assistance, but we are being obstructed every step of the way.
We have been denied access, and the militarization of the aid system has proved deadly. Thousands of people have been shot at while trying to reach the handful of sites where food is distributed under armed guard.
Governments must act to prevent the evisceration of life in the Gaza Strip, and to end the violence and occupation. All parties must disavow violence against civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law and pursue peace.
States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.
The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security. If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing. Failing the people of Gaza, failing the hostages, and failing our own collective moral imperative."
CEO SIGN OFF (alphabetical)
- Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International
- Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer, Action For Humanity
- Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of American Friends Service Committee
- Sean Carroll, President and CEO of Anera
- Reintje Van Haeringen, Executive Director CARE International
- Jonas Nøddekær, Secretary General of DanChurchAid
- Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
- Manuel Patrouillard, Managing Director, Humanity & Inclusion - Handicap International
- Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
- Waseem Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Relief Worldwide
- Joseph Belliveau, Executive Director of MedGlobal
- Joel Weiler, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde France
- Nicolás Dotta, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde Spain
- Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières International
- Kenneth Kim, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
- Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee US
- Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
- Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director
- Simon Panek, CEO, People in Need
- Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International
- Donatella Vergara, President of Terre des Hommes Italy
- Rob Williams, CEO of War Child Alliance
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Gaza Aid Survey Details Israel's 'Disregard of International Law'
"Without accountability and a commitment to protecting humanitarian operations, we risk repeating the same cycles of impunity and neglect," said one campaigner.
Jan 28, 2025
A survey published Tuesday of 35 organizations working in Gaza found that Israel has failed to improve access to lifesaving humanitarian aid in the embattled Palestinian enclave—despite three separate orders from the International Court of Justice to do so over the past year.
The first of those ICJ directives, issued on January 26, 2024, ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and provide basic services and humanitarian assistance to its approximately 2.3 million people. The overwhelming majority of Gazans have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—sickened, or starved, their suffering exacerbated by Israel's "complete siege." According to Gaza officials, Israel's 15-month assault has left around 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing.
"As the survey shows, Israel completely failed to improve humanitarian conditions."
Groups participating in the survey—including Oxfam, Islamic Relief, Médecins du Monde, ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and the Norwegian Refugee Council—found that Israel has "systematically denied and restricted aid, supplies, and services both into and within Gaza" since the ICJ's January 2024 order. This tracks with previous reporting from human rights groups warning that Israel has flouted all three ICJ directives, which were also issued in March and May.
Among the survey's findings:
- 89% of respondents said that Israeli actions regarding the provision of aid had worsened since the ICJ's ruling;
- 93% said the humanitarian situation for the people receiving their aid and services had deteriorated;
- 100% of surveyed agencies importing humanitarian supplies into Gaza said Israeli procedures for aid entry were either ineffective, had systematically impeded the humanitarian response, or were insufficient to meet the huge needs;
- 95% of agencies who imported aid supplies inside the Gaza Strip said they regularly encountered delays, some of them lasting two months or longer; and
- Agencies reported essential items like personal protective equipment (PPE), tarpaulins, winterization supplies, mobile kitchens, hygiene kits, food, and educational materials being denied due to the "dual use" procedure—because Israel deemed there was potential for them to be utilized for military use.
The survey results came a week into a fragile cease-fire between Hamas and Israel—which has already been accused of breaking the truce, including by killing civilians, a 5-year-old girl among them, and firing on medical workers.
"Given the volume of aid now entering Gaza, it is clear how much Israel has been obstructing the humanitarian response for the last 15 months," Oxfam policy lead Bushra Khalidi said in a statement. "As the survey shows, Israel completely failed to improve humanitarian conditions, in disregard of international law, while systematically preventing lifesaving aid from getting in."
"It is vital to assess past failures, even amid a cease-fire," Khalidi added. "Without accountability and a commitment to protecting humanitarian operations, we risk repeating the same cycles of impunity and neglect, leaving millions without hope of a better future."
The survey also coincides with hundreds of thousands of Gazans trying to return to their obliterated neighborhoods. Returning refugees report being blocked by both rubble and Israeli troops, who are sometimes using deadly force. More—but nowhere near enough—aid is finally reaching Gazans following the cease-fire.
"Now that aid is getting into Gaza, the next weeks will be critical but challenging, given the level of destruction Israel has rained down upon Gaza and its near-total decimation of the humanitarian infrastructure and operational capacity," Médecins du Monde president Dr. Jean-François Corty said on Tuesday.
The agencies that produced the survey are calling for continued and unimpeded access to humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as for Israel to be held accountable for alleged war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ICJ is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
"The international community must abide by its obligations under international law and ensure that the cease-fire becomes permanent, so Palestinians in Gaza have access to everything they need to survive without conditions and rebuild their lives equally as every human being deserves," AFSC Palestine/Israel country representative Hanady Muhiar stressed.
"Without meaningful accountability, the suffering will only deepen, and the path to justice and peace will remain blocked."
The communication and advocacy coordinator at ActionAid, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Riham Jafari, asserted that "it is essential that humanitarian access is not only immediate but sustained and unimpeded."
"The rights of Palestinians in Gaza must be protected from acts of genocide, and Israel must be held to account for its continued violations of international law," Jafari added. "Without meaningful accountability, the suffering will only deepen, and the path to justice and peace will remain blocked."
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Violating Cease-Fire Deal, Israel Won't Withdraw Troops From Lebanon Before Deadline
"A renewal of hostilities would be a devastating blow for civilians still struggling to rebuild their lives," said one humanitarian worker.
Jan 24, 2025
The Trump administration on Friday called for a "short, temporary cease-fire extension" between Israel and Lebanon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country's troops will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon as it agreed to in a 60-day truce that began in late November.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, Israel agreed to withdraw its military from southern Lebanon by January 26, and the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah was required to move its forces north of the Litani River and dismantle all military infrastructure in the south.
Netanyahu's office claimed Friday that "the cease-fire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state" and said its "gradual withdrawal process will continue, in full coordination with the United States."
Israel asserted that the truce allowed for the withdrawal process to "continue beyond 60 days—a claim the Lebanese government and Hezbollah refuted—and claimed the Lebanese army had allowed Hezbollah to regroup since the cease-fire began.
Hezbollah called Israel's plan to maintain a military presence in southern Lebanon past the deadline a "blatant violation of the agreement."
As Hezbollah warned it would consider the cease-fire null and void if Israel does not withdraw by January 26, White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said an extension of the deadline is "urgently needed."
Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Israel's "unilteral extension... is clearly a violation of the November cease-fire," while Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek noted that Israel "has been violating the cease-fire the entire time with zero international condemnation."
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said that while the cease-fire has significantly reduced casualties in Lebanon following 14 months of fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah, at least 29 civilians have been killed since the truce began.
"While the cease-fire seems intact on paper, civilians in Lebanon continued to be killed and their homes blown up by the Israeli military," said Maureen Philippon, Lebanon country director for the NRC.
Prior to the cease-fire deal in November, the conflict killed at least 3,823 people and injured 15,859, as well as displacing tens of thousands of people in Israel and over 1 million in Lebanon. More than 100,000 people in Lebanon have still been unable to return to their homes.
"We have been displaced from our village for 16 months," a Lebanese citizen named Rakad, who fled the border town of Yarine, told the NRC. "We are all waiting for the 27th to go back, kiss the soil of our land, and breathe the air of our village."
Israel's likely delay in withdrawing troops comes as Lebanese residents have begun returning to their villages in the south, but the Lebanese military on Friday called on civilians not to return to the coastal town of Naquora, which Mayor Abbas Awada told Al Jazeera "has become a disaster zone of a town."
"The bare necessities of life are absent here," said the mayor.
The NRC warned that the "continued presence of Israeli troops in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon severely restricts the freedom of movement and leaves many in a prolonged state of displacement."
Philippon called on regional and international mediators to "ensure this truce evolves into a lasting cease-fire, with a firm commitment to protecting all civilians and civilian infrastructure."
"A renewal of hostilities would be a devastating blow for civilians still struggling to rebuild their lives," said Philippon. "Lebanese villagers are still being warned against returning to their homes and lands, while many others don't even know what happened to the house they left months ago. These people will need all the stability and support they can get to get back on their feet after. Israel must withdraw from these villages so that thousands can go back."
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Aid Group Sounds Alarm Over 'Disturbing' Israeli Rampage in West Bank
"This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza."
Jan 23, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel's military is applying "lessons" learned during its bombardment of Gaza to recent attacks on the West Bank—and a leading human rights group warned that as in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces' actions are resulting in "significant humanitarian consequences."
Operations like "Iron Wall" in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin and a "surge in settler attacks" that have been backed by the IDF "have heightened insecurity, displacement, and severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement," said the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Thursday.
Iron Wall began Tuesday, with the IDF launching airstrikes and ground attacks in the West Bank two days after a cease-fire took effect in Gaza.
At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the Iron Wall attacks and 40 people have been injured, including medical workers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
After months of warnings from rights organizations that the IDF cut off access to essential services for Gaza residents with a near-total humanitarian aid blockade and the relentless bombardment of the enclave, the NRC said that Israeli forced have "increased checkpoints, roadblocks, and other physical barriers throughout the West Bank."
"These measures further fragment Palestinian communities, restrict access to essential services, and prevent humanitarian agencies, like NRC, from reaching the communities we serve," said the group.
The latest violence in the West Bank is part of a broader trend, with Israel having begun launching airstrikes in the territory after October 7, 2023, for the first time since the Second Intifada in 2000-05.
The IDF launched Iron Wall in Jenin two weeks after a shooting attack that Israel blamed on gunmen in the refugee camp, which has long been a hub for Palestinian resistance groups and is also home to more than 24,000 Palestinians who are registered in the camp.
Katz said in a statement Wednesday that with the Jenin raid, the IDF is applying "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza."
"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said.
In addition to the attacks in Jenin, masked Israeli settlers have been filmed setting fire to homes and vehicles in towns across the Israeli-occupied territory in what the Israel-based human rights group B'Tselem called an effort to "impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians" as part of the cease-fire agreement in Gaza.
Residents told Al Jazeera that "constant gunfire and explosions" have been heard in Jenin since Iron Wall began, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that the IDF has left the camp "nearly uninhabitable."
An estimated 2,000 families have been displaced from the Jenin area since December, according to the agency.
"We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate, and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza," said Angelita Caredda, NRC's Middle East and North Africa regional director. "Under international law, Israel must bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to an end as rapidly as possible. Until then, it must fully comply with its obligations as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians."
In addition to airstrikes and ground attacks, the governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told Agence France-Presse that Israeli military bulldozers have destroyed all roads leading to the camp and to the nearby hospital. Twenty Palestinians from villlages in the Jenin area have been detained since Iron Wall began on Tuesday, according to the governor.
"What we are seeing in Jenin camp is horrific, said one paramedic trained by Doctors Without Borders. "People are targeted while being evacuated, and the wounded cannot be reached by ambulance."
In 2024, Israeli demolitions in the West Bank reached a record high, said the NRC, with 1,768 structures destroyed. IDF soldiers and settlers killed at least 499 Palestinians in the territory last year.
U.S. President Donald Trump has selected at least two nominees for high-level diplomatic positions—Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for U.N. ambassador and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel—who have expressed support for right-wing Israeli officials' claim that Israel has a "Biblical right" to the West Bank.
Amid the settler violence and Jenin raid, Caredda called on the international community to "take decisive action to stop these violations and end the occupation."
"Impunity for serious violations of international law has allowed Israel to unlawfully escalate violence in the occupied West Bank," said Caredda.
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Humanitarian Groups Dread 2025 Aid Shortfall as Trump Term Looms
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist," said one advocate, "it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter."
Dec 04, 2024
As the United Nations humanitarian agency and its partner organizations launched the annual Global Humanitarian overview on Wednesday to appeal for aid ahead of 2025, officials shared sobering numbers: 305 million people in dire need of assistance, 190 million people the agencies believe they can help next year if funding demands are met, and $47 billion that's needed to help the people facing the greatest threats.
Tom Fletcher, under-secretary-general at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said governments, particularly those in wealthy countries like the United States, face "a choice" as the world bears witness to starvation, increasingly frequent climate disasters, and other suffering in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
"We can respond to these numbers with generosity, with compassion, with genuine solidarity for those in the most dire need on the planet—or we can carry on," said Fletcher at a news briefing. "We can choose to leave them alone to face these crises. We can choose to let them down."
Fletcher and other humanitarian leaders noted that as of last month, just 43% of the $50 billion funding appeal made for 2024 had been met.
Food assistance in Syria has been cut by 80% as a result of the large funding gap, while protection services in Myanmar and water and sanitation aid in Yemen have also been reduced.
Fletcher said that with another major funding shortfall expected in 2025, OCHA and its partners are expecting to be forced to make "ruthless" decisions to direct aid to those most in need—likely leaving out 115 million people.
Fears that funding needs will be far from met in 2025 are arising partially from the election last month of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who pursued significant cuts during his first term to agencies including the U.N. Population Fund, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
"America is very much on our minds at the moment, we're facing the election of a number of governments who will be more questioning of what the United Nations does and less ideologically supportive of this humanitarian effort that we've laid out in this report," said Fletcher. "But it's our job to frame the arguments in the right way to land and not to give up. And so I'll head to Washington. I'll spend a lot of time in Washington, I imagine, over the next few months, engaging with the new administration, making the case to them, just as I'll spend a lot of time in other capitals where people might be skeptical about the work that we are doing."
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Secretary-General Jan Egeland, who led OCHA for three years, told Al Jazeera that U.S. funding under the Trump administration is "a tremendous question mark."
"Should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs," said Egeland.
The U.S. is the largest humanitarian donor in the world, contributing $10 billion last year—but its donations pale in comparison to its military spending, which was budgeted at more than $841 billion in 2024, and the earnings of its top corporations.
As NRC noted, Facebook parent company Meta earned $47.4 billion—about the same amount humanitarian agencies are requesting this year—before income taxes in 2023.
Without naming billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—a Trump ally and megadonor who's expected to have a role in his new administration—Camilla Waszink, director of partnership and policy at NRC, called out the widening gap between the world's richest people and those in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
"At a time when the richest people on Earth can go to space as a tourist and trillions of U.S. dollars are used annually on global military expenditure, it is incomprehensible that we as an international community are unable to find the necessary funding to provide displaced families with shelter and prevent children from dying of hunger," said Waszink. "There is an urgent need for a revamp of global solidarity. Existing donor countries must ensure assistance keeps pace with needs and inflation, and emerging economies should compete to become among the most generous donors in the same way they compete to host expensive international sports events."
"It is devastating to know that millions of people in need will not receive necessary assistance next year because of the growing lack of funding for the humanitarian response. With a record number of conflicts ongoing, donors are cutting aid budgets that displaced and conflict-affected people rely on to survive," she added. "Conflicts and a blatant disregard for protection of civilians are driving massive humanitarian needs. It is essential that donors provide funding, but they must also invest in ending conflicts, bringing violations to a halt and preventing new needs from developing."
Fletcher noted that in addition to conflicts like Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the civil war in Sudan, the climate crisis is a major driver of growing humanitarian needs.
"2024 will be the hottest year on record," said Fletcher. "Presumably 2025 will then be the hottest year on record. Floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires affecting millions. We're on the brink of surpassing the 1.5°C in warming, and that will hit hardest in the countries that have actually contributed least to climate change. It wipes out food systems. It wipes out livelihoods, it forces communities to move from their homes and land. Drought has caused 65% of agricultural economic damage over the last 15 years, worsening food insecurity."
In conflict zones and in regions affected by the climate emergency, said Fletcher, "it's our mission to do more."
"My people are desperate to get out there and deliver because they really are on the frontline," he said. "They can see what is needed, but we need these resources. That's our call to action. And we also need the world to do more. Those with power to do more—to challenge this era of impunity and to challenge this era of indifference."
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Report From Gaza Aid Agencies Shows 'Catastrophe on an Entirely New Level'
"In Gaza, we are not witnessing a 'shrinking' humanitarian space; there is barely any space left to operate at all," the report authors said.
Jul 31, 2024
Israeli attacks on relief workers and designated "humanitarian zones" in Gaza, as well its tight control over borders and repeated evacuation orders, have devastated the ability to deliver much-needed aid to residents of the beleaguered strip, 20 non-governmental organizations warned in a report released Tuesday.
Israel has now issued "evacuation orders" that cover 86% of the Gaza Strip's land area, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This means that Gaza's 2.1 million people are now expected to squeeze into only 14% of Gaza's 141 square miles.
"We are doing everything we can to save children's lives in Gaza, but our job becomes more and more challenging by the day," said Jeremy Stoner, the Middle East regional director of Save the Children, one of the organizations behind the report. "Forcibly displacing civilians into areas that cannot accommodate them is causing a humanitarian catastrophe on an entirely new level."
"What is the international community doing about this humanitarian crisis?"
Between July 22 and 27 alone, Israeli "evacuation orders" forced around 200,000 people from central and eastern Khan Younis, and 12,600 from camps in Deir al Balah.
"There is no space left," Stoner continued, "and barely enough life-saving supplies to keep children alive. Without access to critical assistance, lives will continue to be lost."
Palestinians in Gaza face severe shortages of basic necessities, with half a million subjected to "catastrophic levels" of food insecurity, the report authors said. The amount of water available to Gaza's residents has shrunk by 94% since before Israel's onslaught began in October, and on July 26, Israel bombed the "Tal Sultan Water Reservoir," the leading source of drinking water in Rafah.
"We are talking about at least 34 children who have starved to death," Oxfam policy lead Bushra Khalidi said in the report. "If this estimate doesn't move the world, consider that most U.N. and other reports state that Gaza is on the verge of famine. What is the international community doing about this humanitarian crisis?"
Ola, a 42-year-old from northern Gaza who has been displaced more than fives times since the war began, told aid workers that "things are starting to take a toll and our bodies feel weak and flimsy."
"We can't really walk anymore but have to walk long distances to get water or buy anything," Ola said. "So at the moment, we stopped leaving the place we're in (...) and yesterday we picked and cooked mulberry leaves to block the children's hunger."
"It pains me as an aid worker that I can't do much for others."
At the same time, strict rules and violence at the border—both from direct Israeli attacks and the breakdown of law and order in their wake—make it increasingly difficult to get aid into Gaza, with deliveries dropping by 56% since April, according to U.N. figures. Save the Children reported that it had to wait almost a month at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to get four trucks filled with much-needed medical supplies to the other side. At the same time, Gaza's health facilities, which report authors say have "already collapsed," continue to attempt and treat people with a dwindling supply of U.N. medicines.
Another obstacle to delivering medicine is that Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories will only permit flatbed trucks to enter Gaza, yet temperature-controlled medications can only be transported in closed trucks. Because of this rule, 17 pallets of Save the Children's temperature-controlled medication are currently stranded in Al-Areesh, Egypt.
Oxfam said it had deliveries of water tanks, desalination units, tap stands, generators, and latrines stalled on the other side of the border, while the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) had 864 tents it has so far been unable to bring through.
"This is the first time I find myself unable to offer help to others. It pains me as an aid worker that I can't do much for others. In all past escalations, I would still go out and serve those who needed help," Salma Altaweel, an NRC support manager in Gaza City, said in the report.
When aid workers in Gaza attempt to deliver supplies, they put themselves at risk. On July 13, a drone strike killed two members of a War Child partner organization, while an Israeli airstrike killed four of a War Child and Action Aid partner worker's children and critically injured his wife when it struck his shelter in Nuseirat. Israel fired on a clearly marked U.N. convoy on July 21, and two well-labeled UNICEF convoys were fired upon just two days later. Since October, around 278 aid workers have been killed in Gaza.
Stoner of Save the Children said: "Aid workers are not spared from the violence. One of our staff members was killed alongside his wife and four children by an Israeli airstrike back in December, since then aid workers have continued to be targeted. Humanitarian staff should never be a target and humanitarian operations, including convoys and warehouses, must be protected. We've said it again and again: an immediate and definitive cease-fire is the only way to save lives in Gaza."
The report authors issued a reminder that Israel, as an occupying power in Gaza, is obligated under the Geneva Convention to safeguard the humanitarian needs of Gaza's people by allowing aid to enter and be administered safely.
"Our continued presence should not be mistaken for an indication of unimpeded access," the aid groups wrote. "We operate at great risk, despite significant impediments to our access. The risks our colleagues are exposed to each moment are unacceptable and contrary to their protections under international law. In Gaza, we are not witnessing a 'shrinking' humanitarian space; there is barely any space left to operate at all."
They concluded, "We, the undersigned NGOs, continue to call for an immediate and lasting cease-fire and maintain it is the only way to provide humanitarian assistance and protect and save lives in Gaza."
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'Unlawful and Catastrophic': IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah
The head of one humanitarian group called the Israeli military's directives "a serious violation of international law."
May 06, 2024
Israel's army on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people living in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an imminent military assault on the area, terrifying families who have been forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza city in recent months and intensifying warnings of a bloodbath.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets over Rafah ordering some of its 1.4 million residents to move to a strip along Gaza's coast, a signal that a long-feared ground assault on the overcrowded city is set to begin in the face of vocal opposition from the international community and humanitarian organizations.
The U.S., Israel's top arms supplier, has said it would oppose a Rafah assault without a credible plan to evacuate civilians from the city. Humanitarian groups and analysts have said such a plan is impossible because there is no genuinely safe place for Gazans to go. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked so-called "safe zones" and designated routes Palestinians have used to flee in compliance with past IDF orders.
"Israel's military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area," said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no assurances of safety, proper accommodation, or return once hostilities end for those forced to relocate."
"The absence of these fundamental guarantees of safety and return, as required by international humanitarian law, qualifies Israel's relocation directives as forcible transfer, amounting to a serious violation of international law," Egeland said. "Any Israeli military operation in Rafah—which has become the largest cluster of displacement camps in the world—will cause potential mass atrocities."
"If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened."
Israel
reportedly notified the U.S. of the evacuation orders overnight, and CIA Director William Burns is set to arrive in Israel on Monday to discuss the operation in Rafah, a city along Gaza's border with Egypt that has become a critical point of entry for humanitarian aid. The new evacuation orders, expected to be just the first round of directives, include Rafah's largest medical facility.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main relief agency in Gaza, said in response to the IDF's orders that it would not leave Rafah.
"An Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people," the organization wrote in a social media post. "UNRWA is not evacuating: The agency will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to people."
BREAKING: #Israel drops leaflets over #Rafah southern #Gaza, ordering inhabitants of eastern Rafah to immediately move to Al Mawasi (a desolate strip along the Gaza coast), cautioning them from moving to north Gaza or towards its southern and eastern perimeter fence. pic.twitter.com/tBum9ULewF
— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) May 6, 2024
The far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been threatening a ground invasion of Rafah for months, characterizing the city as Hamas' last major stronghold. Avichay Adraee, an IDF lieutenant colonel, said Monday that the Israeli military would use "extreme force" in the evacuation areas and warned that "anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts his life and the life of his family at risk."
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 600,000 children are currently sheltering in the city, including many who have been displaced multiple times since Israel's assault began in October following a Hamas-led attack.
"More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children," Catherine Russell, UNICEF's executive director, said Monday. "Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, called the IDF's evacuation push in Rafah "unlawful and catastrophic."
"There's nowhere safe to go in Gaza," Shakir added. "The international community should act to prevent further atrocities."
The IDF began issuing its evacuation orders in Rafah a day after the Netanyahu government voted to shut down Al Jazeera's operations in the country, a brazen attack on press freedom.
"The fact that Israel banned
Al Jazeera hours before beginning its assault on Rafah is not a coincidence," said author and Middle East analyst Assal Rad. "After everything we’ve seen in the last seven months, imagine what they'll do when they think no one is watching."
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