The world could be witnessing “another Nakba”, or the expulsion of Palestinians, a United Nations special committee has warned.
The committee sounded the alarm on Friday, accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and saying it was inflicting “unimaginable suffering” on Palestinians.
The comments come after Israel announced a plan earlier this week to expel hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians from the north of Gaza and confine them in six encampments.
For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the “Nakba“, or catastrophe – the mass displacement that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.
“Israel continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on the people living under its occupation, whilst rapidly expanding confiscation of land as part of its wider colonial aspirations,” said the UN committee tasked with probing Israeli practices affecting Palestinian rights.
“What we are witnessing could very well be another Nakba,” the committee added, after concluding an annual mission to Amman.
“The goal of wider colonial expansion is clearly the priority of the government of Israel,” its report stated.
“Security operations are used as a smokescreen for rapid land grabbing, mass displacement, dispossession, demolitions, forced evictions and ethnic cleansing, in order to replace the Palestinian communities with Jewish settlers.”
‘Inhuman, degrading treatment’
The committee also noted Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.
“According to testimonies, it is evident that the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, is a systematic practice of the Israeli army and security forces, and is widespread in Israeli prisons and military detention camps,” it said.
“The methods read as a playbook of how to try to humiliate, derogate, and strike fear into the hearts of individuals.”
The committee’s mission took place as Israel’s weeks-long total blockade of aid to Gaza continues.
“It is hard to imagine a world in which a government would implement such depraved policies to starve a population to death, whilst trucks of food are sitting only a few kilometres away,” the committee said.
“Yet, this is the sick reality for those in Gaza.”
The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968.
During the formation of Israel in 1948, approximately 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became known as “the Nakba”.
The descendants of some 160,000 Palestinians who managed to remain in what became Israel presently make up about 20 percent of its population.
The committee is currently composed of the Sri Lankan, Malaysian and Senegalese ambassadors to the UN in New York.
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