Israel’s Rafah evacuation order ‘inhumane,’ UN rights chief says

Israel’s order for Palestinians to evacuate from eastern Rafah in Gaza is “inhumane,” the UN rights chief says.

Volker Turk says forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to areas with almost no access to aid for survival is “inconceivable” and warns that the offensive would push suffering and destruction beyond already “unbearable” levels.

“Gazans continue to be hit with bombs, disease, and even famine,” the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights says in a statement. “And today, they have been told that they must relocate yet again as Israeli military operations into Rafah scale up.

“This is inhumane. It runs contrary to the basic principles of international humanitarian and human rights laws, which have the effective protection of civilians as their overriding concern.”