Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Hu­man Rights Watch said in a re­port re­leased Thurs­day that Is­rael has com­mit­ted war crimes and crimes against hu­man­i­ty in the Gaza Strip, in­clud­ing mas­sive, forced dis­place­ments that amount to eth­nic cleans­ing.

A new re­port re­leased by the New York-based rights group said peo­ple have been killed while evac­u­at­ing un­der Is­raeli or­ders and in Is­raeli-des­ig­nat­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an zones, where hun­dreds of thou­sands are crammed in­to squalid tent camps.

The re­port said the wide­spread, de­lib­er­ate de­mo­li­tion of homes and civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture in Gaza—some of them to carve a new road bi­sect­ing the ter­ri­to­ry and es­tab­lish a buffer zone along Is­rael’s bor­der—was like­ly to “per­ma­nent­ly dis­place” many Pales­tini­ans.

“Such ac­tions of the Is­raeli au­thor­i­ties amount to eth­nic cleans­ing,” Hu­man Rights Watch said.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the re­port.

Is­rael’s blis­ter­ing cam­paign in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Pales­tini­ans, most­ly women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials who do not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants.

Around 90% of the ter­ri­to­ry’s pop­u­la­tion has fled their homes, with many dis­placed mul­ti­ple times. The Is­raeli of­fen­sive has al­so dam­aged or de­stroyed around two-thirds of homes and oth­er build­ings in Gaza, ac­cord­ing to U.N. as­sess­ments.

Is­rael says it does not de­lib­er­ate­ly tar­get civil­ians and blames Hamas for their deaths, say­ing the mil­i­tants hide among civil­ians and op­er­ate in res­i­den­tial ar­eas.

Is­raeli forces have en­cir­cled the Gaza Strip’s north­ern­most ar­eas for the past month, say­ing Hamas mil­i­tants have re­grouped there. Ex­perts say the Is­raeli mil­i­tary cam­paign has caused a new wave of dis­placed civil­ians and warn that famine is im­mi­nent or may al­ready be hap­pen­ing there.

Is­rael has al­so been strik­ing deep­er in­side Lebanon since Sep­tem­ber as it es­ca­lates the war against Hezbol­lah. On Thurs­day Is­raeli war­planes in­ten­si­fied airstrikes tar­get­ing mul­ti­ple ar­eas of Lebanon, killing at least nine peo­ple in the east­ern city of Baal­bek.

The Is­rael-Hamas war be­gan af­ter Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants stormed in­to Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 peo­ple—most­ly civil­ians—and ab­duct­ing 250 oth­ers. Lebanon’s Hezbol­lah group be­gan fir­ing in­to Is­rael on Oct. 8, 2023, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 peo­ple have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wound­ed, the coun­try’s Health Min­istry re­port­ed. In Is­rael, 76 peo­ple have been killed, in­clud­ing 31 sol­diers. —(AP)