Israel has forcibly displaced 40,000 Palestinians in occupied West Bank

The Israeli occupation forces have forcibly displaced 40,000 Palestinians from refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm governorates in the occupied West Bank, and prevented them from returning to their homes, Anadolu has reported. The occupation regime has also deployed tanks in the West Bank for the first time in 20 years as part of its military escalation in the Palestinian territory.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that the army will remain in the Palestinian refugee camps for the next year to prevent residents from returning.

“The Israeli army is expanding its operations in the northern West Bank, and starting tonight, it will also operate in the town of Qabatiya,” said Katz. The minister said that 40,000 Palestinians have been “evacuated” from Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, a euphemism for “forcibly displaced” at gunpoint.

“UNRWA activity in the camps has also been stopped,” he said. “I instructed the [army] to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared, for the coming year, and not allow residents to return.”

According to the Palestinian official news agency Wafa, the Israeli army imposed a two-day curfew in Qabatiya. “The occupation forces started a military operation in the town and imposed a 48-hour curfew as of this morning,” said Jenin Governor Kamal Abu Al-Rub.

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Qabatiya Mayor Ahmad Zakarneh told Anadolu that Israeli soldiers prevent anyone from entering or leaving the town. “Military bulldozers continued to destroy streets and infrastructure as army forces were deployed amid raids on homes, with some turned into military barracks.”

Earlier this month, UNRWA warned that the Israeli army’s operation has emptied many refugee camps in the northern West Bank, adding that the forced displacement of Palestinian families is escalating at an alarming rate. “Forced displacement in the occupied West Bank is the result of an increasingly dangerous and coercive environment,” said UNRWA. “The use of air strikes, armoured bulldozers, controlled detonations and advanced weaponry by the Israeli Forces has become commonplace, a spillover of the war in Gaza.”

The UN agency stressed that, “Repeated and destructive operations have rendered the northern refugee camps uninhabitable, trapping residents in cyclical displacement.”

Last year more than 60 per cent of displacement was a result of Israeli occupation army’s operations. The army has been conducting military operations in the northern West Bank since last month, killing at least 60 people and displacing thousands, said UNRWA.

The raids were the latest in Israel’s ongoing military escalation in the West Bank where at least 923 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught against the Gaza Strip on 7 October, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The International Court of Justice declared last July that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.