The relocation of Palestinians from Gaza is regularly raised by Israel in the wake of the outlandish Trump’s Riviera Plan. The US President proposed in February 2025 a dystopian project to resettle Palestinians in neighboring countries and transform the enclave into a luxurious coastal resort. A month later, Israel’s Security Cabinet established a new agency within the Defense Ministry to “enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries.” This prompted the condemnation of many countries and a warning from the UN secretary general, António Guterres, that “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”
While being politically appealing, the reference to ethnic cleansing may raise more questions than answers from a legal angle, given the controversies surrounding this term. A more straightforward normative frame lies in the prohibition of forcible transfer under international humanitarian law (IHL), as grounded in customary law and reaffirmed in the universally ratified Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
The prohibition enshrined in Article 49(1) of the Geneva Convention is clear and categorical: ‘Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.’ Hence, any transfers of Palestinian civilians, both within or outside the Gaza Strip, are strictly banned. This shall be the end of the matter. Yet the new plan of Netanyahu is to displace Palestinians with the view of encamping them into a small and heavily controlled area of the Gaza Strip while inducing their departure abroad.
Displacing Palestinians not only violates Article 49 and constitutes as such a war crime; it also amounts to a crime against humanity. From this angle, the underlying offense of forcible transfer is defined by three cumulative conditions: 1) the coercive nature of the measure; 2) the lawful presence of the displaced persons; 3) the absence of a ground under international law (Article 7(2)(d) Rome Statute). The second component is undisputable: the lawful presence of the Palestinians in the strip of Gaza is acknowledged by the international community for more than 75 years. I will focus on the two other components and the contextual element of a widespread or systematic attack.
Is leaving Gaza a matter of choice?
The crux of the matter lies on whether the departure from Gaza is forced or voluntary. At first sight, the answer should be straightforward: leaving a country in war is not a choice; this is a flight because this is a question of survival. And, when such a flight is organized by a belligerent, this is an illegal transfer.
Peace Now, an Israeli NGO, concurred: “When life in a certain place is made impossible by bombing and siege, there is nothing “voluntary” about people leaving.” For the Netanyahu government, on the contrary, “a voluntary transfer for Gaza residents who express interest in moving to third countries [is] in accordance with Israeli and international law.” Under IHL however, distinguishing forcible transfer from voluntary departure requires a substantive and context-specific assessment of its consensual nature.
According to a longstanding jurisprudence, “the forced character of the displacement is determined by the absence of genuine choice by the victim in his or her displacement” (ICTY, Prosecutor v. Radovan Karadzić, Trial Chamber, §489; see also Stakić, Appeals Chamber, §279). Expressing its will to leave is just not enough: “an apparent consent induced by force or threat of force should not be considered to be real consent.” (ICTY, Prosecutor v. Blagoje Simić, Trial Chamber, §125). Accordingly:
“while persons may consent to, or even request, their removal, any consent or request to be displaced must be given voluntarily and as a result of the individual’s free will, assessed in light of the surrounding circumstances of the particular case” (ICTY, Prosecutor v. Milomir Stakić, Appeals Chamber, §279).
By assessing the circumstances of the case, the coercive nature of the displacement is understood in a broad material sense. Coercion means not only physical force but also:
“threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power against such person or persons or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment” (Elements of Crimes, 11; ICTY, Stakić, §281).
The ICC tellingly held in Muthaura et al. that the destruction of homes in residential areas, the killings and injuries of civilians and the public announcements to the effect that ‘all must leave’ amounted to a forcible transfer (ICC, PTC II, Prosecutor v. Muthaura et al., §244). The parallel with the situation in Gaza is striking. The coercive environment prevailing thereby cannot be denied. The ICJ observed the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip”, the “large number of deaths and injuries, as well as the massive destruction of homes” and “the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities” (Provisional measures, May 2024, §§27-29).
The fact that Gaza has become uninhabitable because of the Israeli military operation remains immaterial. According to a well-established case law, the displacement is not justifiable if the humanitarian crisis that caused such displacement results from the perpetrator’s action (ICTY, Prosecutor v. Popovic, TCII, §903; Stakić Appeal Judgement, §287). Even an agreement among representatives of the parties in a conflict or the involvement of an international or non-governmental organization in facilitating displacement cannot make it lawful (Popovic, §897).
Is there a permissible ground under international law?
The forcible character of the displacement is enough to establish the absence of such a ground This not only constitutes a breach of Article 49 but also a violation of human rights law and, in particular, the right to freedom of movement under Article 12 of the ICCPR that applies to Israel as the occupying power (I.C.J. Reports 2004 (I), 191-192, §134).
One counterargument would be to rebrand the Israeli plan as an evacuation, which is allowed in very specific circumstances as a temporary measure of last resort. Yet, article 49(2) makes clear that:
“such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement.”
There is absolutely no such material reason. As also stressed by the ICJ, “evacuations of a permanent or indefinite character breach the prohibition of forcible transfer” (Advisory Opinion 2024, §146).
In fact, since October 2023, the Israeli army has ordered many evacuations within the Gaza Strip to such an extent that more than 90 per cent of the population have been displaced. Several UN organs (including the Independent International Commission of Inquiry and the High Commissioner for Human Rights), special Rapporteurs and NGOs have reported that most evacuation orders were in fact displacement orders carried out in violation of Article 49.
A widespread or systematic attack?
The last decisive consideration is whether forcible transfers are part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. This contextual element captures the essence of the crime against humanity, which criminalizes the most serious violations because of their large-scale or massive nature.
The attack does not need to be a ‘military attack’ (Elements of Crimes, 3); it means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of an underlying offence (article 8(2)(a) Rome Statute). While such an attack is inherent to the plurality of transfers and other related offences, it has to be widespread or systematic. According to the ICC, “the term “widespread” refers to the large-scale nature of the attack, as well as to the number of victims, while the term “systematic” pertains to the organised nature of the acts of violence and to the improbability of their random occurrence” (ICC, PTC I, Prosecutor v. Al Bashir, §81).
Clearly, forcible transfers are not accidental or isolated acts. They are taking place within a broader military operation. The widespread – if not systematic – character of the attack is notably evidenced by the indiscriminate bombings, the destruction of most civilian infrastructures, the obstruction to humanitarian assistance and the extensive number of casualties with more than 61’000 deaths and 111’000 injured persons, a majority of them being women and children (for further discussion see here, here and here).
Conclusion
The emigration plan of removing Palestinians outside Gaza, as well as the evacuations carried out within this occupied territory, are a flagrant breach of Article 49. This is not only a war crime, but also a crime against humanity. Forcible displacement is an integral characteristic of the current conflict in Gaza. Strangely enough, it is not properly integrated into the current proceedings before the ICJ and the International Criminal Court. Further investigations are clearly needed before domestic courts in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction.
History reminds us that displacement is not an ineluctable side effect of warfare; it is frequently a strategy on its own and even the very objective of many wars. Thirty years after Srebrenica, it is more important than ever to recall the suffering of the displaced, when:
“in July 1995, the Bosnian Muslim population of Srebrenica was not faced with a genuine choice as to whether to leave or to remain in the area. The shelling of Srebrenica … and the burning of Bosnian Muslim homes was calculated to terrify the population and make them flee the area with no hope of return….[D]espite the attempts by the VRS to make it look like a voluntary movement, the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica were not exercising a genuine choice to go, but reacted reflexively to a certainty that their survival depended on their flight” (ICTY, Krstic case 2001, §147 & 530).