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Israel Flouting International Law with Forced Evacuations in Gaza, UN Says

Palestinians waiting in queue to receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians waiting in queue to receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
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Israel Flouting International Law with Forced Evacuations in Gaza, UN Says

Palestinians waiting in queue to receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians waiting in queue to receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP)

The UN Human Rights office accused Israel on Friday of violating international law by forcibly displacing Palestinians in Gaza under "mandatory evacuation orders".

The Israeli army has issued what the UN describes as 10 mandatory evacuation orders, covering large areas across Gaza, since it resumed its war against Hamas on March 18, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire amid rows over terms for extending it.

"These evacuations fail to comply with the requirements of international humanitarian law," UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement on Friday.

Israel's mission to the UN in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel has previously denied violating humanitarian law in Gaza, blaming Hamas fighters for harm to civilians by operating among them. Hamas denies this.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister have been indicted alongside Hamas leaders by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges, which Israel rejects.

"Israel is not taking any measures to provide accommodation for the evacuated population, nor ensure that these evacuations are conducted in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition," Al-Kheetan's statement added.

Over half of northern Gaza appears to be under such orders, it said, while those who have been newly displaced from the south of the enclave in the Rafah area and forced to go to coastal Al Mawasi were not guaranteed safety there.

"We are deeply concerned about the shrinking space for civilians in Gaza who are being forcibly displaced by the Israeli army from large swathes of territory," it added.

Since Israeli airstrikes resumed on March 18, at least 855 Palestinians have been killed and 1,869 injured, according to the UN, which cited figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

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Tribal Leader Says Evacuations from Syria’s Sweida are ‘Temporary’

Syrian Bedouin families ride in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Malek Khattab)
Syrian Bedouin families ride in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Malek Khattab)
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Tribal Leader Says Evacuations from Syria’s Sweida are ‘Temporary’

Syrian Bedouin families ride in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Malek Khattab)
Syrian Bedouin families ride in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, Monday, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Malek Khattab)

Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were bussed out of Syria’s mainly Druze city of Sweida on Monday under a US-backed ceasefire aimed at halting days of fighting between Bedouin tribesmen and Druze militants that witnesses said has killed scores of people.

The head of Syria’s Supreme Council of Tribes and Clans said on Monday that hundreds of the Arab families who began leaving the southern city of Sweida were undertaking a “temporary displacement” to allow the army to secure the area, rejecting accusations of a wholesale forced exodus.

Sheikh Mudar Hamad al‑Asaad told Asharq al‑Awsat daily that homes belonging to Arab Bedouin families in several Sweida neighborhoods had been burned, looted and wrecked during recent unrest.

“The streets are blocked and the houses are uninhabitable,” he said. “The departure is only until the army and internal security forces can restore order across the city and its outlying villages.”

State news agency SANA said earlier that the Interior Ministry had brokered an agreement allowing “all civilians who wish to leave Sweida because of the current conditions” to do so until their safe return can be guaranteed. Buses began moving families from Sweida at dawn on Monday.

Asaad dismissed social‑media claims that the transfers amounted to sectarian “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs from the Druze‑majority province.

“Electronic trolls are stirring up sedition,” he said. “The aim is to prolong the dispute between the government, the militias of Sheikh Hikmat al‑Hijri and the Arab tribes, and to push the region towards instability.”

He accused “remnants of the Assad regime, PKK elements, arms and narcotics traffickers – and Hijri himself – of exploiting the chaos” to carve out a Druze‑run enclave.

Asaad said most of the evacuees were women and children from farming and trading families who had fled other parts of Syria during the civil war.

The tribal leader denied the withdrawal was a capitulation. He said the clans had agreed to leave only after a presidential statement urged them to quit the flashpoint areas.

“Without that order, the tribes would be in complete control of Sweida today,” he said, adding that Druze elders and local political figures had also asked them to help stop Hijri’s “destructive project”.

Arabs have lived in Sweida “since before Islam” and make up roughly 30 percent of the province’s population, alongside Syriac Christians (just over 10 percent) and Druze who settled in the 11th century, Asaad said.

He estimated that more than 150,000 young tribesmen had mobilized during the recent flare‑up. According to Asaad, the tribes back the Syrian army’s deployment in Sweida and want all weapons – whether held by Druze, tribes or others – placed under state control.

“The clans seek to spread peace among the Syrian people, settle disputes and bury sectarian strife,” he said.

“We stand with all components of Syrian society and have no ambition to replace the state, only to defend the gains of the Syrian revolution and support national stability.”