In the ten days since 18 March 2025, as Israel intensified its genocidal onslaught on Gaza, the Israeli army issued 10 mandatory “evacuation orders” covering large areas across all governorates of Gaza. By 11 April 2025, a total of 21 orders had been issued. This was followed by a further four orders that weekend covering 33 square kilometres and impacting medical points and other facilities supporting the Palestinian people’s survival in Gaza. Combined with Israel’s designation of “no-go” areas, these displacement orders cover 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, directly leading to the forcible displacement of almost 420,000 people, nearly 84,000 households, in just less than a month, undermining access to half of all water wells and effectively trapping Palestinians in increasingly fragmented and unsafe enclaves in Gaza, where access to essentials for survival has reached a record low.
Over half of northern Gaza –– an area that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has undertaken to clear of its Palestinian population since October 2023, and the first part of the territory to see the implementation of the ‘General’s Plan’ –– is currently covered by Israeli displacement orders. The entirety of Rafah has been designated as an “evacuation” zone. It is crucial to recall that the Rafah governorate formed the basis of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) last Order on provisional measures issued in South Africa v. Israel. Pursuant to this Order, Israel must maintain open the Rafah crossing for “unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” and:
Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Notwithstanding this binding legal duty, tens of thousands of Palestinians remain trapped in Rafah, which has been reduced to rubble, and Khan Younis –– both of which are subject to intense aerial bombardment which eliminates the option of complying with the displacement orders issued by the IOF. Those that have managed to escape from Rafah to Al-Mawasi, as instructed, have fled under gunfire and remain subject to attack upon their arrival with at least 23 incidents of strikes on the alleged “safe zone” recorded by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) since 18 March 2025. The intensity of Israel’s military activity is also evidenced in the numbers of Palestinians being killed. In the past month, on average, Israeli forces have killed 100 children a day.
Israel’s Evacuation Orders Violate International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
Individual or mass forcible transfer is strictly prohibited in all circumstances. According to IHL, evacuations are only permitted in exceptional circumstances under strict and precise conditions. They may never be used as a combat strategy or for practical efficiency in attaining a military objective, nor for reasons related to the conflict. Evacuations can only be carried out for the security of the population or for “imperative military reasons” –– which is the opposite experience of Palestinians in Gaza who are only subjected to greater threat of death and destruction. In addition, Articles 57 and 58 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 require Parties to the conflict to avoid locating military objectives “within or near” densely populated areas and to take “all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimising, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects” and “to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives” as a precautionary measure intended to protect civilians against the effects of attacks. Therefore, cases in which displacement of the population may be lawfully ordered are reduced to an absolute minimum. Even in the exceptional cases where an evacuation is legally justified, proper advance warning of attacks must be provided, and the civilian population must be given sufficient time to escape the danger.
On 1 January 2025, Al-Haq released its report ‘How to Hide a Genocide: The Role of Evacuation Orders and Safe Zones in Israel’s Genocidal Campaign in Gaza’. Focussed on Israel’s genocidal practice of issuing unlawful mass “evacuation” orders, that lead to vast stretches of the Gaza Strip being cleared of its Palestinian population, along with its creation of so-called “safe zones” in which displaced Palestinians are subsequently targeted and forced to suffer conditions unfit for human survival, the report highlights how these measures amount to forcible transfer and are designed to ethnically cleanse the territory in preparation for its annexation. Further, the mass forcible transfer represents evidence of Israel’s specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza and constitutes an integral part of the genocidal acts of killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and creation of conditions of life calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.
Inflicting Genocidal Evacuation Conditions intended to Destroy Palestinians in Gaza
Despite Israel’s contention that the unilaterally designated “safe zones” (which are unlawfully created and consequently do not provide any legal protection) are designed to minimise the impact on civilians, Israel has both established and subsequently violated the supposed protection it has guaranteed. Palestinian men, women and children that manage to survive being targeted with heavy weaponry in densely populated areas must then attempt to carve out a space to shelter amidst the debris and unexploded ordinance. Under IHL, if all or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power must agree to relief schemes on behalf of the protected population and shall even facilitate them by all the means at its disposal. Notwithstanding this, Israel implemented legislation enacted in October 2024 banning the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the largest distributor of aid and the primary direct service provider. Israel has introduced a registration process for international humanitarian organisations designed to further restrict humanitarian access to Gaza, and a plan for “humanitarian hubs” in which the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) –– the Israeli army unit responsible for administering the military occupation –– will dictate the distribution of urgently needed humanitarian aid to “vetted Palestinians” only, in areas under the full IOF control.
Israel has not taken any measures to provide accommodation or ensure that the protected population enjoys all humanitarian guarantees, such as access to food, medical care, spiritual assistance, hygiene facilities, and crucially, a right to return. In fact, it has done the complete opposite. Since 2 March 2025, Israel has maintained a total blockade on all humanitarian aid, with every crossing closed to incoming supplies for the second month in a row. Israel’s decision to completely deprive Palestinians of life-saving aid, including fuel and even an electricity supply, and targeting humanitarian organisations constitutes a flagrant violation of the Order on provisional measures issued by the ICJ on 28 March 2024 which explicitly requires Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale . . . of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” including “by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”.
Due to the total siege and constant orders to relocate, the ability to carry out humanitarian operations has become increasingly challenging. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) expressed their deep concern that:
IRC staff on the ground are witnessing the crisis unfold in real time. They are receiving near-daily evacuation alerts as hostilities escalate to levels not seen since before the ceasefire. This, alongside food prices soaring and basic goods disappearing from shelves, is making delivery of humanitarian services incredibly challenging.
Recent weeks have seen an unprecedented targeting of aid workers, with the number of humanitarians killed rising to 412, and severe movement restrictions within Gaza as Israeli authorities now require the UN and its partners to coordinate movements to access over two-thirds of the Gaza Strip. On 11 April, the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations Network (PNGO) has announced famine in Gaza.
Plans to Annex Gaza
Israel’s clear plan to systematically erase Palestinians from Gaza through a policy of mass forcible transfer to areas devoid of essentials for life, accompanied with the targeting of forcibly displaced men, women and children –– whether in “evacuation zones”, fleeing pursuant to unlawful IOF orders, or densely crowded together in “safe zones” established in contravention of core provisions of IHL –– has been repackaged and presented to the international community as evidence of its adherence to international law.
Despite UN Security Council resolution 2735 (2024) rejecting any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza, Israeli officials have increased their “inflammatory rhetoric” in recent weeks and clearly stated their plan to capture extensive parts of Gaza’s territory. It is high time that the international community sees evacuation orders for mass forced displacement are in fact genocidal acts designed to destroy Palestinians in Gaza before the territory is annexed and re-settled by the settler-colonial, apartheid State of Israel.
Al-Haq calls on Third States and the international community to:
- Condemn Israel’s policy of mass forcible displacement as genocidal and take concrete action to impose a ceasefire and ensure the unimpeded entry of all forms of humanitarian aid, including reconstruction and “dual-use” materials, that is now in critical need –– including by implementing a two-way arms embargo on Israel;
- Fund UNRWA and offer diplomatic support, as well as take steps to ensure it can continue to provide critical life-saving aid despite being under direct attack by the Israeli military and government;
- Demand open and unimpeded access to humanitarian organisations, fact-finding missions, State representatives and diplomats, and journalists to the Gaza Strip;
- Arrest and prosecute perpetrators and enablers of genocide and other international crimes, including dual nationals serving in the IOF, and uphold their legal obligations to carry out the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrests warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant;
- Isolate Israel diplomatically, economically, politically:
- Revoke Israel’s UN membership fully as it continues to wage attacks against the UN in attempts to delegitimize the institution as a whole, including by unseating Israel from the UN General Assembly;
- Sever all diplomatic, political, economic and trade relations with Israel;
- For countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, end and avoid normalization agreements, commonly signed for the promise of lucrative business deals at the expense of Palestinian life.
6. Call for an end to Israel’s settler-colonial, apartheid regime, rooted in death, destruction, displacement, land theft, racial oppression, domination, strategic fragmentation, and persecution and erasure of the Palestinian people.