Egypt vows to block Palestinian displacement, accuses Israel of genocide

Egypt said on Friday it would not tolerate mass displacement of Palestinians and what it described as genocide, continuing to ratchet up its criticism of Israel's Gaza offensive as thousands of residents of Gaza City defied Israeli orders to leave.

"Displacement is not an option and it is a red line for Egypt and we will not allow it to happen," Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters in Nicosia.

"Displacement means liquidation and the end of the Palestinian cause and there is no legal or moral or ethical ground to evict people from their homeland," he said.

His comments are in line with a hardening of Egyptian language this year about Israel's conduct in the enclave, which borders Egypt, even as it has worked with Qatar and the US to try to mediate a ceasefire in the almost two-year-old war.

Repeating accusations of genocide levelled by the Egyptian leadership against Israel in recent months, he added: "What is happening on the ground is far beyond the imagination. There is a genocide in motion there, mass killing of civilians, artificial starvation created by the Israelis," Abdelatty said.

Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self defence. It is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that accuses it of genocide and which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned as "outrageous".

The World Health Organization chief on Friday urged Israel to stop the "catastrophe" of people starving to death in Gaza, saying at least 370 people have died from malnutrition since the war began.

"This is a catastrophe that Israel could have prevented, and could stop at any time," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

"Starvation of civilians as a method of war is a war crime that can never be tolerated: doing so in one conflict risks legitimising its use in future conflicts," he said.

His comments came two weeks after the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza, blaming the "systematic obstruction" of humanitarian deliveries by Israel.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported Friday that 373 people, including 134 children, had died from starvation and malnutrition in the besieged Palestinian territory since the war there erupted in October 2023.

Tedros repeated the number and said that it included "more than 300 just in the past two months".

The WHO chief also stressed that "where hunger goes, disease follows".

Israel struck a high-rise building in Gaza City on Friday after an evacuation warning, as the military stepped up operations aimed at seizing control of the famine-stricken city of some 1 million Palestinians. Strikes elsewhere in Gaza City killed at least 27 people, health officials said.

The military accused Hamas of using high-rises in the city for surveillance and planned ambushes, and said it would carry out "precise, targeted strikes" on Hamas infrastructure in the coming days.

Palestinians said Friday's strike targeted the Mushtaha tower in Rimal, an upscale neighborhood before the war. Gaza City resident Ahmed al-Boari said people fleeing Israeli operations elsewhere in the city had sought shelter in and around the building. Satellite imagery showed a large number of tents nearby.

The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot dead a 57-year-old man near a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Friday, while the military said it had "eliminated the terrorist".

In a statement, the Palestinian health ministry announced "the martyrdom of citizen Ahmed Abdel Fattah Shahada... by occupation bullets," near a checkpoint south of Nablus in the northern West Bank late on Friday.

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot told AFP Friday that the EU's credibility on foreign policy was "collapsing" due to the bloc's failure to act over Israel's war in Gaza. "It is undeniable, we are not going to bury our heads in the sand, that the European Union at this stage is not living up to its responsibilities in this enormous humanitarian crisis," Prevot said in an interview at his office in Brussels. Belgium has said it will recognise the State of Palestine at this month's UN General Assembly, while unilaterally imposing new sanctions against Israel, in view of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That move comes as the EU has so far failed to take action against Israel in the face of the dire situation in Gaza, because of deep divisions among its 27 member states. "It is clear that, in the eyes of the public, the credibility of the European Union's foreign policy on this particular issue is collapsing," Prevot said.

Agencies