Human Rights Watch: Trump’s Gaza plan could amount to ‘ethnic cleansing’

Human Rights Watch says US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate over a million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, if implemented, could amount to “ethnic cleansing.”

The euphemism, which came into wide use after the war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, refers to the forcible displacement of the civilian population of an ethnic group from a geographic area.

Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says it is unclear if Trump’s plan will be implemented, but that the statement of intent is “very concerning.”

“If it were to transform into state policy, it would potentially amount to ethnic cleansing. And if done with intent, it would be forced displacement. And if that forced displacement was done as part of a systematic and widespread attack against the civilian population as a matter of state policy, it would actually be a crime against humanity,” he argues.

Coogle says countries are obliged to consider individual applications for asylum, but “do not have an obligation to participate in the forced displacement of the entire population of the Gaza Strip.”