Removing civilians from harm’s way in advance of an attack is the right thing for warring parties to do if it’s the only way to protect them. But the laws of war stipulate that this can only be done in narrow circumstances as a temporary measure, and civilians should be given a safer location where their humanitarian needs are met.

Israel claims its evacuation orders in Gaza have done just that.

Not so.

Israeli military actions have utterly failed to keep fleeing and displaced Palestinians in Gaza safe and, in fact, have put them in danger.

We analysed 184 Israeli military evacuation orders and dozens of satellite images and found that inaccurate and inconsistent evacuation orders often served only to sow confusion and spread fear, if they even came in time to allow people to flee at all. The Israeli military repeatedly designated evacuation routes and safe zones — and then attacked them.

A 42-year-old woman with an 11-year-old son said, “Yes, the leaflets and recorded calls were what I understood to be evacuation orders, and yes, we wanted to follow them, but could not because the Israelis started bombing the area heavily even before the announcement. People were killed in huge numbers and in brutal ways.”

Things were no safer on her evacuation route. “There were airstrikes while we were walking but we followed people and survived.”

On 10 November 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We have established a safe zone.” The reality was the opposite.

‘We are living an animal life’

A 34-year-old man who was displaced with his children from Gaza City told me that he first fled south to a supposedly safe area in Khan Younis. “The Israelis said Khan Younis was a safe place,” he said. “But they started bombing this area … I took a decision to leave and go to Rafah.”

The man and his family sought refuge in the so-called “humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi, staying in a small tent near the beach. He said an Israeli airstrike hit a building near a humanitarian agency approximately 300 meters from his tent.

“The emotional state of the kids, what they witnessed in the last area — they are in shock, they are terrified,” he said. “They jump at small sounds now. It was so hard for me to get my family from the last place to here. Most of the areas were closed by the Israelis as they were considered battle areas.”

Under international law, safe areas are required to be — of course — safe, but displaced people must also have access to food and water, health care, sanitation, and shelter.

But this man told me that he and his family had been sleeping on the ground in a tent with 10 others, using a shared outdoor toilet serving about 70-80 people and that humanitarian aid, so far, had consisted of two bags of flour. “We are living an animal life,” he said.

The laws of war also require evacuation to be temporary. Israel is duty-bound to facilitate the displaced person’s return to their home as soon as possible after the end of the hostilities in the area.

But the Israelis have reduced many of the displaced civilians’ home areas to rubble, intentionally or recklessly destroying or severely damaging swaths of housing and civilian infrastructure — including controlled demolitions after hostilities have largely ceased.

Step in and stand up for the law

The intentional forced displacement of a civilian population in an occupied territory is a war crime. Nowhere is this organised, deliberate displacement clearer than in areas of Gaza that have been razed, extended, and cleared for buffer zones along the border with Israel and in a security corridor that bifurcates Gaza.

The intention of the Israeli authorities appears to be to permanently empty and cleanse these areas of Palestinians and keep them under the occupation and control of Israel.

Multiple statements by senior Israeli officials show that the forced displacement in Gaza is intentional and is Israeli state policy. Because it is also widespread and systematic, this forced displacement qualifies not only as a war crime but as a crime against humanity, which the International Criminal Court‘s prosecutor should investigate.

We can expect these crimes against Palestinians to continue unless and until Israel’s allies demand for it to end.

US President-elect Donald Trump is likely to empower Israel to double down, given that he said on the campaign trail that it should “finish the job”.

That leaves the rest of the world to step in and stand up for the law and the human beings these laws are meant to protect. This shouldn’t be allowed to get worse. It needs to stop now.

Nadia Hardman is a researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of “Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza”.

The latest in targeted killings of senior Hezbollah officials came as Lebanese officials considered a United States-led cease-fire proposal. Israel also bombed several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long been headquartered, after warning people to evacuate.

Mohammed Afif, the head of media relations for Hezbollah, was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath party’s office in central Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who was not authorized to brief reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Afif had been especially visible after all-out war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in September and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike. Last month, Afif hastily wrapped up a press conference in Beirut ahead of Israeli strikes.

There was no Israeli evacuation warning before the strike in central Beirut. An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw four bodies and four wounded people, but there was no official word on the toll. People could be seen fleeing. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

“I was asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike, and people screaming, and cars and gunfire,” said Suheil Halabi, a witness. “I was startled, honestly. This is the first time I experience it so close.”

The last Israeli strike in central Beirut was on Oct. 10, when 22 people were killed in two locations.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack ignited the war in Gaza. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict steadily escalated, erupting into war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on Oct. 1.

Hezbollah has continued to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel daily and has expanded their range to central Israel. The attacks have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused some 60,000 people to flee in the north. A rocket barrage on the northern city of Haifa on Saturday damaged a synagogue and wounded two civilians.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, and over 1.2 million driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.

Lebanon’s army, largely on the sidelines, said an Israeli strike on Sunday hit a military centre in southeastern Al-Mari, killing a soldier and wounding three others. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

Panellets are bite-sized balls of marzipan that can be covered with sliced pine nuts or diced almonds before they are popped in the oven.

Similar to the Day of the Dead in Mexico, these little delicacies are usually cooked in tribute to lost loved ones, when families visit cemeteries on All Saints’ Day (1 November).

It has also become a Catalonian tradition for marking the change of season, by enjoying the food and wines that are in harvest.

This includes eating castanyes (hot roasted chestnuts), drinking muscadel (a sweet dessert wine) and foraging mushrooms in the woods.

Passed down through generations

Making panellets is seen as a family tradition – something you do with your mother or father at home then passing on the knowledge to your children someday.

To look at, these small, button-sized nibbles appear an easy thing to make. However, to find out for real, I attended La Patente cooking school in Barcelona to learn from a professional, Mayera Armas.

In a visit organised by Barcelona-based airline Vueling to promote Catalan culture, Armas took a group of journalists through their paces in the kitchen.

As someone who struggles to boil an egg at the best of times, I decided to bring a secret weapon: My son Jack Keeley. He’s a keen cook who has made panellets before, so knew what he was doing.

He also saved my blushes, especially among some stiff competition from colleagues from France and Italy.

Getting the recipe right

To start off, you mix water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil for about five minutes, so it becomes a sweet syrup.

Then you add almond powder in a bowl and mix well.

After this, you must add egg whites and yolks from separate bowls.

Next comes the most important part: kneading the mix – but it cannot be too dry. If you find that it is, just add more egg or some water.

By this stage – if you have kneaded the mixture correctly – you should have a long marzipan sausage.

Now comes the moment to get out a huge knife and the scales: the marzipan must be cut into tiny 20 gramme pieces and then rolled into balls.

Size matters here – these are bite-size delicacies, so if they are any bigger, you will run out of ingredients to make enough panellets to go round. They’re also typically puddings you bring to parties, so you don’t want to be left short.

The next part involves coating the marzipan with your covering of choice. Traditionally, that would be pine nuts or diced almonds.

Sweet dreams are made of marzipan

The nut mix should be kneaded into the marzipan using some beaten egg white. The best way to do this is to wet your hands so that you can make them look like Ferrero Rocher chocolates, except without the trademark chocolate, of course. Each panellet should be well covered.

Alternatively, if you prefer a sharper taste, you can try pushing crystalised cherries into the centre of each panellet, but these must also be coated in beaten egg white.

Another option could be coating the delicacy with salted chocolate and/or orange.

Quince jam, a traditional Spanish produce that comes to harvest during autumn time, is another popular flavouring.

Whatever your tastes, panellets are for those with a pretty sweet tooth.

Finally, they should be popped into the oven for about ten minutes at about 200-220 degrees Celsius. Once you have taken them out, don’t sink your teeth in straight away! If you leave them for a day or two, they taste much better.

Armas, who is originally from Venezuela but moved to Barcelona 20 years ago, said panellets were a defining autumn dish in Catalonia.

“Panellets are very important because it is the day you remember your relatives who have died. So, you get together with your family or friends and you go to the cemetery,” Armas tells Euronews Culture.

“It is also the start of autumn. You can be eating panellets for two weeks and then they are gone.”

She said the ingredients matter because they are native to Catalonia.

“The almond trees should be flowering by now and it should be made with fresh almonds. Or it can be made with pine nuts. You need to make it with the fresh products that you have.”

Over the years, immigration to Catalonia from outside Spain has influenced the way panellets are made.

“Almond and pine nuts are the most traditional ones, but with immigration you get chocolate. But you also get quince [jam], which is typical here and it is like an autumn fruit,” she said.

“This has nothing to do with Halloween, which is American. I hope that we keep this tradition.”

Armas also stressed that panellets could not be consumed without a “little” glass of muscadel. This should typically be done by tilting a porrón – or wine jar – and swallowing it in one.

Dear reader, your author tried this – but the wine ended up all over his apron instead of down his throat.

Meanwhile, his teenage son drank the muscadel down in one.

The shame of it.