On the morning of 13 October 2023, Israel asked the United Nations to move approximately 1 million Palestinians from the northern to the southern Gaza Strip within twenty-four hours. At the same time, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on the northern Gaza Strip calling on Palestinians to leave and threatening death if they stayed. Meanwhile, the shelling continued. Israel has used a staggering amount of weaponry in its bombardment, including internationally banned weapons like white phosphorus, which is classified as a war crime.
In its Western-backed war on Gaza, Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, which several international experts have described as tantamount to genocide. Israel is prosecuting its war in full view of the world on the pretext of “self-defence,” ignoring seventy-five years of settler colonialism, occupation, apartheid, and collective punishment against the Palestinian people as a whole and in particular against the population of Gaza.
The UN and many Arab states have raised the alarm about plans to displace Palestinians both inside and outside the Gaza Strip into Egypt, and the issue has become a topic of serious discussion and repeated statements, especially from the Egyptian side. This paper surveys the humanitarian situation, shedding light on the context in which forced displacement is taking place within the strip and on the Arab and international reactions to it. It also looks at possible scenarios for the evolution of the displacement currently underway.
