Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Philippe Lazzarini has Sunday said that Israel is laying the groundwork for the mass expulsion of the people of Gaza across the territory’s border into Egypt.
In an opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, the UNRWA chief pointed to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the increasing concentration near the border of displaced civilians who fled the fighting, first in the north and then further south.
“The United Nations and several member states, including the US, have firmly rejected forcibly displacing Gazans out of the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said.
“But the developments we are witnessing point to attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt, regardless of whether they stay there o rare resettled elsewhere.”
“If this path continues, leading to what many are already calling a second Nakba, Gaza will not be a land for Palestinians anymore,” Lazzarini said, using the Arabic t
erm for the exodus or forced displacement of 760,000 Palestinians during the war that coincided with Israel’s creation in 1948.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA