Ajith Sunghay, Head of OHCHR’s Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), informed UN News that the escalation has resulted in significant destruction to residential buildings in southern parts of North Gaza governorate and in northeastern areas of Gaza City.
This has resulted in more civilian casualties and forced displacement. Local health authorities reported 816 Palestinians killed between 26 August and 1 September, nearly doubling the number of fatalities from the previous week.
Nowhere to go
Approximately one million Palestinians reportedly remain in northern Gaza and are being pushed into increasingly smaller areas in the west of the enclave.
“Many are unable to relocate – there are no safe areas and movement is dangerous. Others are still trapped in eastern Gaza City, with humanitarian workers unable to reach them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israeli military attacks on people seeking aid continued across the Gaza Strip, where humanitarians are still struggling to bring in desperately needed supplies.
OHCHR has recorded over 2,146 deaths near sites operated by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began operations in late May, and along convoy routes.
West Bank warning
Mr. Sunghay also highlighted increasing reports of Israeli Government plans to “extend sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank or effectively annex parts of it.
He recalled last July when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “very clearly stated” that Israel has already incorporated large parts of the OPT – particularly East Jerusalem and Area C, where most settlements are located – into its territory, concluding that this amounts to annexation.
Israel “has done so, and continues doing so, with the unabated building of settlements and outposts and related infrastructure and with the forcible transfer of thousands of Palestinians from large swathes of the West Bank now controlled by the Israel forces and settlers,” he said.
“It has done so also by reshaping the West Bank with an extensive network of checkpoints and gates which ensure freedom of action to settlers while segregating Palestinian towns and villages.”
Further expulsion threat
He warned that “any declaration of extension of sovereignty over the West Bank will have further catastrophic consequences on Palestinians” – not only on their right to self-determination but also on daily life.
It would facilitate a further massive expansion of settlements and legalization of existing outposts, and allow Israel to take full control of natural resources there without any restrictions.
“Further, Israel’s objectives to formally annex ‘as much land as possible with the least Palestinians in it’ as declared by some of its leaders, would clearly place Palestinians in the annexed areas at imminent risk of expulsion through increased settler violence, deprivation of political rights, expropriation of land, and mass home demolitions,” he said.
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