Approximately 1.9 million Palestinians, about 90% of Gaza’s population, were displaced at least once since October 2023, often after losing family members and most of their belongings. It is estimated that by the end of the first year of the assault, Gaza’s residents had been displaced an average of six times.
“There are no half measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. ‘You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’ – there’s no place under heaven.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, April 2024
Introduction
Since October 2023, the Israeli regime has been carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip. It has killed tens of thousands of people, injured hundreds of thousands more, destroyed homes and critical infrastructure and starved most of the population – all as part of a systematic, coordinated attack aimed at annihilating all facets of life in the Gaza Strip (for further details, see B’Tselem report Our Genocide, July 2025).
As of October 2025, according to figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, an estimated 68,519 people were killed as a direct result of the assault on the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of them civilians who did not participate in hostilities, and an estimated 170,382 were injured. Several studies published throughout the assault show that these figures represent a significant underestimation of the death toll and there is reason to believe the actual number of casualties resulting from Israel’s onslaught is much higher. No such assessment of the number of injured has been conducted, but given the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system and similar limitations, those two are likely underestimated.
The enormous displacement crisis created by Israel is a central component of the genocide it is carrying out in the Gaza Strip. Over the course of two years, Israel repeatedly ordered Gaza’s residents to uproot themselves. Approximately 1.9 million Palestinians, about 90% of Gaza’s population, were displaced at least once since October 2023, often after losing family members and most of their belongings. It is estimated that by the end of the first year of the assault, Gaza’s residents had been displaced an average of six times. The displacement forced on them by Israel has stripped them of their humanity and dignity, and compelled them to wander for months from one displacement camp to another in a daily struggle for survival.
After ordering people to flee their homes, Israel concentrated IDPs in ever-shrinking areas where living conditions were impossible. Although designated by Israel as safe zones, the Israeli military systematically bombed these areas and fired on them. With no real possibility of finding shelter that could offer protection from Israeli attacks, and no safe access to food, water, and basic services, residents of Gaza quickly learned that nowhere in the Strip is safe.
As demonstrated in the following sections, ongoing displacement has harmed Gazans’ physical and mental health, their family units, and the social fabric of the population. Given these foreseeable consequences, displacement must be understood as a central tool Israel used to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza as a group, in other words, to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (for more, see What is Genocide? in Our Genocide, July 2025).
Read the full report here