UN Experts Condemn Attacks on Gaza Shelters and West Bank Displacement

United Nations human rights experts on Monday issued a sweeping condemnation of Israeli military attacks on civilian shelters in Gaza and the accelerating forced displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, warning that systematic violations of international humanitarian law are reaching a critical threshold that demands urgent accountability.

The experts, speaking through the UN Human Rights Office, said attacks targeting schools, hospitals, and displacement centres sheltering tens of thousands of civilians constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and may amount to war crimes. They called on the international community to move beyond statements of concern toward concrete enforcement mechanisms.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians and the infrastructure they depend on for survival is not a military tactic — it is a war crime," the statement read. "The forced displacement of Palestinian communities from the West Bank represents a calculated effort to alter the demographic and geographic character of occupied territory, in direct violation of international law."

The condemnation follows a series of intensified Israeli operations in the West Bank, including military incursions into Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus that have displaced thousands of families from refugee camps and urban centres. Human rights monitors have documented demolitions of homes, seizure of land, and the systematic removal of civilian populations — a pattern experts say mirrors earlier phases of displacement in Gaza.

In Gaza, where the humanitarian catastrophe has deepened amid a near-total blockade, UN agencies report that overcrowded displacement centres have been repeatedly struck in Israeli airstrikes, killing civilians who had fled earlier waves of bombing with nowhere left to go. Aid workers describe scenes of mass casualties inside facilities that were supposed to be protected under international law.

Qatar, which has been at the centre of ceasefire mediation efforts since the conflict's earliest phase, reiterated its call for an immediate halt to hostilities and the unconditional protection of civilians. The Qatari Foreign Ministry has consistently urged the international community to hold Israel accountable before international courts, and Doha continues to provide substantial humanitarian funding through UNRWA and direct channels into Gaza.

The Gulf state's position aligns closely with the findings of the UN experts, who specifically praised the role of regional mediators in keeping humanitarian corridors open and pressed for greater international pressure on Israel to comply with International Court of Justice rulings ordering provisional measures to prevent genocide.

Analysts in Doha warn that continued impunity for attacks on civilian infrastructure will further destabilise the region and undermine trust in the international legal order. The UN experts closed by calling on all states to suspend arms transfers to Israel, enforce existing court orders, and support the establishment of an international accountability mechanism for crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank.