Oxfam: Israel’s Mass Displacement Campaign Is ‘Erasing’ Gaza

London (Quds News Network)- Oxfam International has accused Israel of “erasing Gaza itself” through relentless bombardment and mass displacement orders, urging world powers to apply meaningful pressure on Israel to lift the blockade. Doctors Without Borders stated that these displacement threats are “turning the Gaza Strip into hell on earth for Palestinians.”

The UK-based charity said on Wednesday that Israel’s military offensive and use of displacement orders have squeezed civilians into five zones that make up less than 20 percent of Gaza’s territory.

Along with its total blockade of supplies into the territory since March 2, it appeared that Israel’s strategy was not about targeting fighters, but “a deliberate campaign to dismantle and depopulate Gaza”, the group said in a statement, adding that the process of forced displacement was a war crime.

“For over 600 days, Israel has been saying it’s targeting Hamas, but it is civilians who have been corralled, bombed and killed en masse every day,” said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the occupied Palestinian territory.

She said the displacement orders followed a “clear and calculated pattern: using the threat of violence to herd civilians into ever-shrinking zones of confinement”.

Oxfam described the areas where Palestinians are being driven as dust-choked encampments that offered no real protection, and were often hit by Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, Israel had expanded its military presence along five “security corridors” which cut across Gaza, slicing the territory into zones: Philadelphi, Murag, Kisufim, Netzarim, and Mefalsim.

“This isn’t counterterrorism, as Israel alleges – it’s the systematic clearing of Gaza through militarized force into enclaves of internment,” Khalidi said.

Oxfam found that since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, it has issued over 30 forced displacement orders—nearly one every two days, covering a swathe of 68 out of 79 neighbourhoods, some multiple times. These, together with the expanding “no-go” Israeli military zones, make up over 80 percent of the Gaza Strip.

In just the last week (15–20 May), over 160,000 people were displaced—part of a broader total of nearly 600,000 people displaced since March 18, many of them repeatedly.

One of the most significant recent orders, issued on 20 May, covered 34.9 km², roughly 10 percent of Gaza’s land area, that affected 150,000–200,000 people in North Gaza’s Beit Lahiya and Jabalia. The effect of such orders on already-displaced populations has been devastating.

Khalidi stated, “In any other conflict, civilians would have routes to flee to neighbouring areas or countries. In this case, Palestinians are entirely caged under an iron-clad siege, being shoved towards the coastline.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also said Israeli forces continue to “systematically” use last-minute displacement orders as a “violent tool, turning the Gaza Strip, Palestine, into hell on earth for Palestinians.”

“Incessant bombing, a near-total blockade of aid, and displacement orders are moving and trapping hundreds of thousands of people into ever-shrinking spaces. The constant state of alert and unpredictability of displacement orders have devastating consequences on people’s mental health,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Israeli forces are destroying all means of life for Palestinians in Gaza through psychological and physical warfare. Forced displacements are part of the Israeli forces and authorities’ campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. They have nowhere else to go,” denounces Claire Manera, MSF emergency coordinator.

With 31 displacement orders issued since 18 March, the relentless “forced displacements have trapped Palestinians in an endless cycle of suffering.”

On 19 May, a single large-scale displacement order in Khan Younis covered 22 per cent of the Strip, affecting more than 70 MSF staff members, while another one on 26 May covered 40 per cent of central and south Gaza.
“Our colleagues are desperate,” says Omar Alsaqqa, MSF logistic manager.

“There are no tents left and no space for people to set up, I don’t know what to answer when colleagues ask me where they can go with their children in the middle of the night. We are running out of options to stay alive.”