Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip comply with international humanitarian law in part by guiding civilians away from the urban battlefields that arise ad hoc during the war. Yet astonishingly, some observers have mischaracterized these public safety protocols as violations of law.
Human Rights Watch has called Israel’s relocations of civilians in Gaza “displacements” that amount to the odious crime of “ethnic cleansing,” a displacement to make a community ethnically homogeneous.
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) have echoed the false ethnic-cleansing charge, as have certain other self-described congressional progressives. But under international humanitarian law, the removals are valid “evacuations,” not displacements, a difference with enormous legal and moral significance.
The international humanitarian law’s rule of evacuation requires—to the extent feasible for civilian safety—that an army evacuate civilians temporarily from the vicinity of a military operation before attacking area combatants. For example, an evacuation order may relocate civilians from a neighborhood targeted for a bombing raid on an enemy rocket-firing position. By contrast, the rule of displacement prohibits the permanent removal of civilians from an entire occupied territory or country unless required for the security of the civilians involved or for imperative military reasons.
Evacuation orders issued by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza have consistently followed the rule of evacuation. Virtually every order has repositioned civilians from a military sector to a safer area before an IDF military mission; no order has moved civilians permanently or pushed them outside of Gaza. Moreover, the IDF has enhanced civilian safety by preparing evacuation routes, establishing humanitarian zones for the evacuees, communicating escape routes through multiple modes of communication and providing reasonable prior notice of the plans. These actions have mitigated the unfortunate, but inevitable difficulties faced by families that must temporarily leave their homes.
The success of IDF evacuations is especially impressive considering the machinations of Hamas to frustrate these protective measures. Hamas embeds military personnel and ordinance in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques, and then blocks the residents of those neighborhoods from obeying evacuation orders. The militants attack IDF soldiers who prepare humanitarian zones for temporary habitation. And the terrorists steal truckloads of humanitarian aid meant for evacuees. Those cruel acts are egregious abuses of the human shield rule as outlined under international humanitarian law.
Evacuations of Gazans from combat areas happen even when the practice hampers the IDF’s military progress by sacrificing the element of surprise. Hamas terrorists who flee the site of an imminent IDF strike can and do blend into the evacuating population and launch attacks from the designated humanitarian zone. That terror tactic illegally creates a new batch of human shields and often compels additional evacuations. It has forced many of Gaza’s residents to uproot themselves multiple times.
Top military experts have lauded Israel for the professionalism of its evacuations. One such assessment was delivered by the renowned authority, John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at Modern Warfare Institute at the U.S. Military Academy a West Point. Similar praise was extended by other military experts as well.
Different military commanders may disagree about the best way to evacuate civilians during the chaos and peril of war. An evacuation can be extremely arduous, especially when the action must be repeated due to enemy interference. But even a burdensome or repeated evacuation is evidence of proper compliance with international humanitarian law, not a sign of displacement or any other wrongdoing.
