The 154-page report, "Hopeless, Starving and Besieged," examined Israel's conduct since the war in Gaza broke out last October and found the Israeli government carried out "widespread and systematic" forced displacement. Israel's actions "meet the definition of ethnic cleansing," the authors wrote.

The United States stressed at the United Nations on Tuesday that "there must be no forcible displacement, nor policy of starvation in Gaza" by Israel, warning such policies would have grave implications under U.

Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that Israel's repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the "war crime of forcible transfer", and to "ethnic cleansing" in parts of the Palestinian territory.