Israeli organization and evacuees blast UN for ignoring plight of displaced Israelis

Israeli rights group Shurat HaDin and 2,300 displaced Israelis write a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, blasting the refugee agency for ignoring the plight of hundreds of thousands of Israeli internally displaced persons.

The group and refugee families say that nothing has been done to fulfill UNHCR’s principles of “leaving no one behind” and building “effective approaches to resilience.”

Some 130,000 Israelis have been evacuated, and another 120,000 or so Israelis have voluntarily left the northern and southern border areas where they were subject to attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.

The families also decry the fact that UN agencies are helping Palestinian refugees in Gaza displaced by the war, but not them.

“You have made no efforts to protest publicly their plight, nor demanded a UN General Assembly session on this specific topic, nor requested aid donations for Israelis internationally nor taken any steps at all to ensure the safety of Israeli families in this war zone,” write the families.

“We can only draw the damning conclusion that you are ignoring the circumstances, danger and trauma of the Israelis because they are Jews and not Muslim Gazans and therefore, not worthy of your efforts or protections.”