alteration of the demographic composition of the territory. These policies create a coercive environment that eventually results in forcible population transfer.411 Internally displaced Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip currently lack protection due to the absence of a state which is willing and able to provide such protection. On the one hand, Israel is refusing to abide by IHL which obligates it to provide protection to the civilian population.412 On the other hand, the PA is currently not able to provide protection for the Palestinian population as a result of the effective control exercised by Israel on the territory, particularly over Area C, where, in accordance with the Oslo Accords, Israel continues to exercise full civil and security control over Palestinians.413 The IDP Protection Gap in the oPt The Protection Gap in Gaza Strip The majority of the Palestinian population in Gaza are refugees registered with UNRWA, and most of them are people who have been internally displaced multiple times since the 1948 Nakba. Despite it falsely claiming that it no longer occupies Gaza, Israel still maintains full effective control within the meaning of Article 42 of The Hague Regulations and Article 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention over the Palestinian population in the territory, as well as over airspace, territorial waters, and borders. Throughout the past three decades, Israel has unleashed multiple direct and indiscriminate attacks against the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, killing thousands, devastating civilian infrastructure, and displacing the majority of the population multiple times. Israel combines the ‘hot’ violence of its bombings, military operations, and violent suppression of protests in Gaza with the ‘cold’ violence of its unending, suffocating blockade. During Israel’s attack on Gaza in May 2021 alone, more than 120,000 Palestinians were internally displaced.414 Similarly, Israel’s most recent onslaught on Gaza in August 2022 – which murdered 49 Palestinians, including 17 children – internally displaced more than 450 people.415 Thus, Palestinian IDPs in Gaza are in a unique position in which they are being physically prevented from returning to their homes in other areas of Mandatory Palestine, but are also under the imminent threat of continuous displacement within the borders of Gaza at the hands of Israel. 411 Reynolds and BADIL, Coercive Environments (n 230). Fourth Geneva Convention (n 398), art 47. 413 Despite the fact that Israel formally retired its troops from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it still should be considered as exercising effective control over the territory. See BADIL, ‘No Safe Place: Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Perpetrated by High-Level Israeli Officials in the Course of “Operation Protective Edge”’ (2016) Submission to the International Criminal Court <https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/no-safe-place-crimesagainst-humanity-and-war-crimes> accessed 3 October 2022. In the 2004 Wall Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognized the applicability in the oPt of Human Rights instruments such the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and cultural Rights and the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child. See Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (ICJ Advisory Opinion) 2004, paras 107-113 [hereinafter Wall Advisory Opinion] <https://www. icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/131/131-20040709-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf> accessed 3 October 2022. 414 Euro-Med Monitor, ‘Israel’s violations in its latest attack on Gaza’ (Euro-Med Monitor, 27 May 2021) <https://bit. ly/3SYi39J> accessed 3 October 2022. 415 Anera, ‘Palestine Situation Report’ (Anera, 9 August 2022) <https://www.anera.org/blog/aneras-situation-reportfrom-gaza/> accessed 3 October 2022. 412 90