UN: Israeli forces intentionally altered Gaza's geography

(Patria) - The Israeli government has shown a clear intention to establish permanent control over Gaza and ensure a Jewish majority in the occupied West Bank, a UN commission stated in a report yesterday.

The UN report details how Israeli authorities have comprehensively and systematically destroyed civilian infrastructure in Gaza's corridors and buffer zone, resulting in Israel's control expanding to 75 percent of the Gaza Strip by July of this year.

"Israeli forces have also intentionally altered Gaza's geography by creating military corridors, expanding the border buffer zone, and establishing security zones," reads the report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Israel continues to claim it is not waging war against the population of Gaza, but against the militant group Hamas, whose fighters attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, thus inciting the war, and the Israeli Mission in Geneva rejected the report's findings.

"Hamas has genocidal intentions towards Israel, the report presents everything upside down. The commission does not miss an opportunity to reveal its true character and politically motivated agenda," they stated.

The commission also found that since October 2023, Israeli policies have shown a clear intention of forcibly displacing Palestinians, expanding Jewish settlements, and annexing the entire West Bank.

"Increasingly frequent violent settler attacks have resulted in the forced displacement of communities and subsequent Judaization of areas in the West Bank," the report highlights.

The commission also points out military operations in the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams, which resulted in the destruction of homes and infrastructure and the displacement of residents, which the Commission considers militarily unjustified and equivalent to collective punishment.