Netanyahu told 1.1 million Palestinians they had 24 hours to evacuate. What is that if not ethnic cleansing? | Sarah Helm

I will not move. I will be killed in my house with my family,' one mother told me. Look to history and the omens are grim

• Sarah Helm is a former Middle East correspondent and diplomatic editor of the Independent

The Israeli government's demand that more than one million Palestinians leave their homes in northern Gaza and flee south has horrific echoes of the past.

I worked as a journalist in the region in the 1990s, and in recent years I have spent a great deal of time in Gaza and Israel, researching the history of Gaza's 2.3 million refugees. Almost everyone in Gaza is a refugee from one of 200 Arab villages, then in southern Palestine, that were destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948 when the Jewish state came into being. What remains of some of these villages lies within 10 miles of the Gaza boundary. Some refugees can even see their land through the fence.

Sarah Helm is a former Middle East correspondent and diplomatic editor of the Independent

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