DayofPal—A detailed report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that Israel is conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank, forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in a large-scale military operation intended to permanently change the territory’s demographic and geographic landscape.
Since the launch of “Operation Iron Wall” in January 2024, Israeli forces have forcibly evacuated over 44,000 Palestinians, including 22,000 from the Jenin area and 22,000 from Tulkarm and its Nur Al-Shams camp alone, under the pretext of dismantling “terrorist infrastructure.”
In reality, local officials, aid agencies and residents describe a policy designed to render key refugee camps uninhabitable and eliminate the right of return for generations of displaced Palestinians.
The demolitions have specifically targeted the Jenin and Nur Al-Shams refugee camps, where multi-storey buildings have been flattened and critical infrastructure destroyed.
According to UNRWA’s West Bank director Roland Friedrich, 48% of all homes in Nur Al-Shams have been damaged or destroyed, making return impossible without full-scale reconstruction.
“This is a serious violation of international law, with grave humanitarian and political consequences,” said Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin. He told Haaretz that some 800 buildings, nearly 40 per cent of all structures in the camp, have been levelled.
“Thousands of families have been living in complete uncertainty for months, scattered across villages and towns, unable to return,” he said.
In Tulkarm’s Nur Al-Shams camp, the situation is similarly dire. Governor Abdallah Kamil said that at least 9,000 people had been displaced, and 1,514 families lost their homes entirely, while a further 2,200 homes were partially damaged, most of them now uninhabitable.
“These are not security operations,” Kamil insisted. “This is an intentional policy by the Israeli government to eliminate the camps and prevent the displaced from returning.”
The Israeli army has continued to issue new demolition orders, with plans announced this month to raze 25 additional buildings in Nur Al-Shams, some outside the official boundaries of the camp.
Israeli forces have blocked access to displaced residents trying to protest the demolitions and raised Israeli flags inside the camp, a move seen by locals as a deliberate provocation.
One displaced resident, Abu Anas, told Haaretz that “there’s no explanation for the destruction except collective punishment.” He noted that no armed fighters had been seen in the camp for months.
Observers say the Israeli government’s goal is not security but demographic engineering, an attempt to erase the Palestinian refugee presence in key areas of the occupied West Bank.
Several Palestinian officials explicitly describing the displacement as ethnic cleansing. Kamil says that the purpose is to “alter the geographic and demographic reality” and eliminate the refugee question altogether.
These developments have drawn comparisons to the Nakba of 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland and more than 500 villages destroyed to make way for the establishment of the Israeli state.
Human rights advocates warn that Israel’s current military strategy is part of a wider apartheid policy rooted in Jewish supremacy, where the displacement of Palestinians, whether in Gaza, the West Bank or Jerusalem, is justified as a matter of “demographic balance.”
UNRWA’s Friedrich has warned that unless halted, Israel’s demolition campaign could result in permanent displacement for tens of thousands. “This is not about security,” he stated. “This is about long-term control.”
“This is not just a war on buildings,” said Abu Ahmed, displaced from Jenin. “It’s a war on our right to exist.”
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