Human rights groups are demanding international powers intervene to stop Israel’s creation of an “extermination zone” in northern Gaza this week, as Israeli forces are attacking hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who they have trapped in the region, and are demanding that hospitals evacuate.
Several advocacy groups have raised alarm as Israel has embarked on a campaign to seemingly eliminate all Palestinians from northern Gaza. Israeli forces have issued evacuation orders for the region while targeting Palestinians who try to flee the area. Soldiers have killed dozens of people in the invasion, which began on Monday, the anniversary of the start of the Gaza genocide.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has said that the current invasion is “one of the most violent campaigns of [the] genocide,” noting Israeli forces’ siege of Jabalia refugee camp and the surrounding area. The campaign, the group said, is directly targeted at civilians and turning the entirety of north Gaza into a “full military zone.”
“The Israeli army is systematically working to empty northern Gaza of its residents and force them to move to the south,” the group said in a statement. “The forcible deportation of a population is defined as a crime against humanity under the statute of the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations and the international community must intervene immediately to save tens of thousands of Palestinian residents in northern Gaza who face ethnic cleansing by Israel.”
Médecins Sans Frontières noted on Tuesday that Israeli forces are making north Gaza into an “unlivable wasteland.”
Indeed, in recent weeks, Israeli officials have embraced a plan to carry out full ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, formulated by a group of retired Israeli generals and presented to high powered officials. The proposal does not include a plan for allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, potentially portending a permanent Israeli military occupation of the area.
On Tuesday, Israeli officials ordered at least 3 hospitals to evacuate. Gaza officials have reported that Palestinians’ bodies are lining the streets, unable to be reached because of Israel’s attacks on paramedics and health care workers.
Because of Israel’s bombardment of the area, thousands of people are trapped inside their homes or shelters. The attacks have killed dozens of people, with the full death toll unknown as many people have been trapped under the rubble, health officials have said.
At the same time, Israel has even further intensified its aid blockade to the region; little to no aid has entered the region since the siege began, while humanitarian groups say that it has become nearly impossible to conduct their operations due to the siege.
In all, there are at least 400,000 Palestinians now trapped in northern Gaza, the UN has estimated. There is little hope for those who are able to escape. Israeli forces have also continued bombing central and southern Gaza, and just on Thursday killed at least 28 people in a bombing on a school-turned shelter in Deir Al-Balah. Meanwhile, the UN has reported that southern Gaza is “completely overwhelmed,” already overcrowded, lacking basic resources like shelter, and severely polluted.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said on Tuesday that Israel has effectively created an “extermination zone” in northern Gaza. The group pleaded for President Joe Biden to put an end to the siege.
“Mr. President, don’t you have a conscience?” said the group’s national executive director, Nihad Awad. “The horrific suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people, with the complicity of your administration, must stop. You must reverse course and stop this latest Israeli plan for an ‘extermination zone’ in northern Gaza in which every living being would be intentionally starved to death or murdered.”
“People of conscience will long remember ‘genocide Joe’ and your enabling the attempted extermination of an entire people,” Awad continued.