Days of Pal—The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) imposed a sweeping siege on the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm on Thursday, detaining nearly 1,500 Palestinians in one of the largest arrest campaigns since the start of the Israeli war nearly two years ago.
Local residents reported that Israeli forces sealed the city’s southern and eastern entrances with iron gates, blocking vehicle movement in and out of Tulkarem.
Soldiers stormed shops, cafés, and vehicles in the city center, detaining everyone inside and forcing them to march in long lines on foot toward the Khadouri military checkpoint.
Additional military vehicles and a bulldozer were deployed into the city, while troops confiscated surveillance footage from several businesses.
The mass detentions came hours after an explosion took place near the Israeli checkpoint west of Tulkarem.
In a joint statement, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society condemned the Tulkarem raids, calling them part of Israel’s intensified campaign of mass arrests since October 7, 2023.
They said more than 19,000 Palestinians have been detained from the West Bank since the war began, in addition to thousands more from Gaza.
The statement noted that mass arrests, such as those carried out in Tulkarem within a few hours, mirror the wide-scale detentions in Gaza that have been accompanied by systematic abuse, humiliation, and field interrogations.
As of early September 2025, the number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails under the Prison Service has surpassed 11,000, not including thousands of others kept in military camps directly run by the Israeli army.
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