The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Friday that Israeli military actions in Gaza are continuing to displace Palestinians and raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing.
The UN agency stated that Palestinians are being forced repeatedly into a shrinking fraction of the besieged enclave. According to the OHCHR, Israeli forces are encroaching on areas past their deployment line, known as the Yellow Line.
Israeli forces appear to treat the Yellow Line as a kill zone, preventing Palestinians from returning to the remnants of their homes on the opposite side.
The OHCHR cautioned that the military is actively destroying remaining civilian infrastructure. Troops are also attacking displacement sites while pursuing an explicit aim to expand the military deployment area to cover 70 percent of Gaza.
Aid agencies and human rights groups have repeatedly demanded that Israel halt forcible displacements and attacks on shelters. Documentation from the UN office tracked a westward military expansion over the preceding two weeks.
This expansion triggered fresh displacements in Shujayea, Gaza City, and eastern areas of Bureij, Deir el-Balah, and al-Maghazi in central Gaza. At least two attacks hit displacement camps in Shujayea, where explosive robots detonated the few remaining standing structures.
The OHCHR received reports on Sunday that an Israeli drone dropped munitions on a tent camp at the Shujayea junction. The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing reported that the ensuing fire displaced 200 families, numbering 800 people.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR in occupied Palestine, described the nightmare of displacement in Gaza as both acute and chronic. Individuals displaced prior to a ceasefire announcement hold little to no prospect of returning to their original areas because those zones fall beyond the Yellow Line.
Despite an ongoing ceasefire agreement, continuing Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,574 people and wounded 5,687 others since the pact took effect on October 11, 2025. Those figures come from the enclave Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health also reports that total casualties since the war began in October 2023 have reached at least 74,570 dead and 175,808 wounded.
