Israel’s priority is a ‘wider colonial expansion’, the committee on Israeli practices in occupied territories said.
Published On 9 May 2025
The world could be witnessing “another Nakba”, or the expulsion of Palestinians, a United Nations special committee has warned.
The committee sounded the alarm on Friday, accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and saying it was inflicting “unimaginable suffering” on Palestinians.
The comments come after Israel announced a plan earlier this week to expel hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians from the north of Gaza and confine them in six encampments.
For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the “Nakba“, or catastrophe – the mass displacement that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.
“Israel continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on the people living under its occupation, whilst rapidly expanding confiscation of land as part of its wider colonial aspirations,” said the UN committee tasked with probing Israeli practices affecting Palestinian rights.
“What we are witnessing could very well be another Nakba,” the committee added, after concluding an annual mission to Amman.
“The goal of wider colonial expansion is clearly the priority of the government of Israel,” its report stated.
“Security operations are used as a smokescreen for rapid land grabbing, mass displacement, dispossession, demolitions, forced evictions and ethnic cleansing, in order to replace the Palestinian communities with Jewish settlers.”
‘Inhuman, degrading treatment’
The committee also noted Israel’s human rights violations