Rights advocate slams Israeli minister’s plans for ‘mass forced deportations’ of Palestinians
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, says Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has made clear “his answer to the Palestinian problem is mass forced deportation, from both Gaza and the West Bank”.
“With Trump coming into office, it is not clear what will stop this war-crime plan,” Roth added in a post on X.
Roth was responding to a video of a speech that the far-right minister made at a conference preparing for Trump’s presidency, where he said the Netanyahu government would apply the same policy in the occupied West Bank as it has in Gaza.
MSF report finds ‘clear signs of ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza
A new report from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has found “clear signs of ethnic cleansing” in Gaza by Israeli attacks.
“In the north of the Strip in particular, the recent military offensive is a clear illustration of the brutal war the Israeli forces are waging on Gaza, and we are witnessing clear signs of ethnic cleansing as Palestinian life is being wiped off the area,” according to the report, titled Gaza: Life in a death trap, released on Thursday.
“Our firsthand observations of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe inflicted on Gaza are consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”
MSF reported that, as of mid-October, only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were partially functioning amid Israeli attacks, and the other 19 hospitals were out of service.
Gaza’s last remaining oncological hospital has shut down due to a lack of fuel and MSF said its teams have had to carry out surgeries without sufficient anaesthesia.
MSF said the prevalence of skin diseases, upper respiratory tract infections and diarrhoea are indicative of the “appalling hygiene conditions” endured by people in Gaza. It said children are missing out on crucial vaccinations against diseases such as polio and measles.
It also reported that, over the first 12 months of the war, MSF staff were subject to 41 attacks and violent incidents, including “air strikes, shelling and violent incursions in health facilities, direct fire on its shelters and convoys and arbitrary detention by Israeli forces” and eight MSF workers have been killed.
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