Attachments
On 21 January 2025, two days after adding the West Bank to its Gaza “war objectives,” the Israeli government launched Operation Iron Wall in the northern West Bank, focusing on the refugee camps in the districts of Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas. The operation began with a massive raid on Jenin Refugee Camp. On its first day, Israeli armed forces killed 10 camp residents, most of whom were not affiliated with armed groups.
Israel already intensified its raids and attacks on cities and refugee camps in the northern West Bank early in the war, and ramped them up further after launching Operation Summer Camps in late August 2024. The raids grew longer and more violent, with broader destruction of infrastructure and increasing use of airstrikes. The extreme violence and massive destruction often forced residents to leave their homes, whether fearing for their safety or because of the damage to homes and infrastructure in the area. In some cases, residents were unable to return. However, Israel presented these acts as collateral damage.
In the six weeks since the current operation began, Israel has destroyed hundreds of homes using explosives and bulldozers. The military sent tanks and armored personnel carriers into the northern West Bank for the first time since the second intifada, exacerbating concern that Israel indeed intends to treat the West Bank as a combat zone.
Israel’s actions have led to the displacement of about 40,000 residents from the Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and Jenin refugee camps. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz has declared the military will remain in the camps throughout the coming year and the residents will not be allowed to return.
The refugee camps in the West Bank, as in the Gaza Strip and in Arab countries, were established after 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced out of what became the State of Israel during the Nakba in 1948-1949. In the northern West Bank, residents of refugee camps – some of them Nakba refugees and most of them descendants of such refugees – are being displaced again. Once again, many have had to leave their homes quickly with little to their name: no permanent roof over their heads and most belongings left behind, in many cases possibly buried under the rubble.
B’Tselem field researchers collected testimonies from some of these refugees/IDPs
‘Abla Birnawi, 59, a mother of four, described being displaced from Nur Shams RC with her family in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 26 February 2025
We live in the al-Manshiyah neighborhood in Nur Shams RC. On 7 February 2025, the army raided the camp with large forces and many soldiers entered our neighborhood, too. There was a massive military presence, so we stayed inside and couldn’t go out. I was at home with my husband, ‘Abdallah Birnawi, 63, who has diabetes complications including blindness, and my son ‘Ali, 25. My son Muhammad, 32, lives on the second floor with his wife and their children: Elias, 5, Wasim, 3, and eight-month-old Layan
On the third day of the invasion (9 February), soldiers broke into our house and forced us out. We went to my son Islam’s house, which is 100 meters south of ours. It was at night. On the way to Islam’s house, soldiers arrested my husband, who needs help walking because he’s blind, and ‘Ali, and took them both to the a-Zandik family’s house, which they had taken over and turned into a military post.
I kept walking with my daughter-in-law and the children until we got to Islam’s house. The next day, 10 February, troops started raiding the houses near Islam’s, which is in the area between al-Manshiyah and Jabal a-Salahin, and forcing the residents to leave.
The next day, on 11 February 2025, soldiers also raided Islam’s house, where we were staying. They were very aggressive and forced us to leave in the rain. We walked for about half an hour, until a car that passed by took us to Kafr a-Lubad. We didn’t know what to do, but then volunteers and council members from the village came and took us to a makeshift IDP camp in a place called a-Diaa’ Halls. The place has two halls and they were set up to accommodate displaced people – one for women and children and one for men.
On 13 February, soldiers came here, went into the men’s hall and arrested my son Muhammad and two other IDPs. We have no idea why they arrested him, and he still hasn’t been released.
A week after we got here, my husband and ‘Ali also arrived. My husband told me the soldiers had held them under arrest for two days in the house they turned into a military post, interrogated them and beat them. After the arrest, they went to the house of a relative of ours in Dhanabeh, and from there they came to Kafr al-Lubad.
We’ve been here for more than two weeks, and we don’t know what happened to our homes. We only piece together little bits of information from social media, and have gathered that the military is focusing its activities on our neighborhood, al-Manshiyah.
There are 20 of us here in the women’s and children’s hall. It’s not easy living like this, with so many people in one space, but we have no choice; the army forced this situation on us. We’re all just waiting for them to announce the Israeli forces are withdrawing so we can go home.
Nadiah A’mar, 50, a mother of two, spoke about being stranded outside Tulkarm RC while her family was expelled from it, in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 26 February 2025
I live with my husband, Ibrahim A’mar, 70, and our two daughters, Maryam, 12, and Maria, 11, in the al-Ghanem neighborhood in the center of Tulkarm RC. On Monday morning, 7 February 2025, while I was at work in the sewing workshop in the village of Shuweika, I heard the army was raiding Tulkarm and its refugee camps. I left work right away and tried to get home.
When I reached the entrance to the camp, I saw that the army was blocking the road and I wouldn’t be able to get to the neighborhood from there. I tried to get in through another entrance, but there was a massive presence of soldiers and military vehicles there, too. I had to go to the Dhanabah neighborhood, and then to the ‘Izbet a-Tayah neighborhood in the eastern part of the city of Tulkarm, but I couldn’t get through to our neighborhood from there, either, because of the massive army presence. They were surrounding the camp from all sides.
When I saw I had no way to get home and join my husband and our two daughters, I went to a relative’s house in ‘Izbet a-Tayah. I stayed there for four days and couldn’t contact my husband and daughters. On the fifth day, my husband showed up without the girls. He said the soldiers kicked them out of the house on the very first day of the raid. They didn’t let them take their phones with them. On the street, they separated the women and children from the men and forced each group to go in a different direction. Later, I found out the girls had gone with their cousins to the Dhanabah neighborhood, where we have family.
Maryam and Maria joined us later at our relative’s house in ‘Izbet a-Tayah, but it’s a small house and everyone’s having a hard time financially, so when we heard that the Kafr a-Lubad village council had set up an IDP camp run by volunteers, we left and went there. Now the two girls and I are in a hall with about 20 women and children, and my husband is in the hall opposite us, where there are about 20 men.
We were displaced and forced to leave our homes by the soldiers. They expelled my family just like the other families in the center of Tulkarm RC. We don’t know what happened to our house. Everything we know is only from social media. That’s where we heard that army forces were setting up positions in the center of the camp, demolishing houses and paving wide roads. We don’t know when we’ll go back or how long we’ll stay in the IDP camps we’re forced to live in, despite having done nothing wrong.
Nawaf Shahin, 64, a father of nine, spoke about his family’s displacement from al-Far’ah RC in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher ‘Aref Daraghmeh on 9 February 2025
In 1948, my family was forced out of the village of Shahma, near Ramla and Jaffa. They arrived at al-Far’ah camp as refugees and settled there in rough conditions, along with dozens of other refugee families who were expelled from their lands. Life in a refugee camp is full of suffering and pain. The conditions are tough because space is limited, so people have to build homes very close together and it’s crowded.
Until the last war, I worked on land inside Israel, and for the past year and a half I’ve been unemployed. I support a family of 11, and we barely make ends meet.
During the war, the occupation authorities intensified its activity against the camp. The army raided the camp dozens of times; a lot of young people were killed, and people lived in suffering and terror. But the raid this week was different from previous ones. It was the hardest, cruelest time the people in the camp and my family have been through. Eight days ago, a lot of soldiers raided the camp and closed it off from all sides. They destroyed roads and water pipes. They surrounded the houses and took over many of the rooftops. People had to live as if they were in prison, while food ran out in their homes. People were left without food, water and medications. The situation became unbearable.
As soon as the raid started, the soldiers started raiding homes and forcing the inhabitants out with threats. Today, 9 Feb. 2025 they reached our home. They came in and threatened to blow the house up with us inside, if we didn’t leave. We were terrified. We went out to the yard. It all happened very quickly. My son barely had time to put on shoes. The soldiers sent a drone into the house and searched it. My daughter Taqwa, 25, was with them during the search because they didn’t let me go in. They searched every corner of the house. Then we had to leave, and the soldiers didn’t let me lock the house. One of the officers told me he would lock up himself.
We walked for almost a kilometer. We were very scared, because there were a lot of soldiers in the streets and the roads were completely destroyed – full of potholes more than two meters deep. We heard gunfire once in a while. We were terrified. We barely made it to the eastern side of the camp, exhausted. We only took a bit of food with us, not enough for even one day. We ran into someone from the village of Tayasir who gave us a ride to the home of a relative of his in the village who’s away at the moment. It has everything – electricity, water and even kitchen utensils. People from the area came and brought us other things, such as mattresses, blankets and food.
Our situation brings up difficult thoughts about the past, about the expulsion my family went through during the Nakba. I said to myself: Here we are, becoming refugees in our homeland for the second time. In the past, we were forced out of our homes and had to leave everything behind. Now we don’t know if our Nakba is repeating itself. How long will we be displaced from our camp and our homes? We did find a place to live in the meantime and were welcomed warmly. We have food and everything. But it’s painful. We know the pain of expulsion and the taste of displacement. Now we’re afraid it will all happen again, that they’ll destroy our homes and we won’t be able to go back.
In the home we’ve now been expelled from, my wife and I always told the kids what we heard from our parents about the land we were expelled from in 1948 and the dream of returning to our land. Today, our dream is to return to al-Far’ah camp, which is only a few kilometers from where we are. We left our home and everything we have behind, and we don’t know if this displacement will be short or long.
A man who lives across from us in the camp told me there are a lot of soldiers in my home and they’re smashing things. We’re going through a terrible time. People are helping us for now, but I don’t know what the dozens of expelled families will do. This situation is unbearable, and the people who stayed in the camp are living in severe deprivation. The Israeli army isn’t allowing anything into the camp. I pray that we can return to our homes and possessions soon. After all, we didn’t take anything with us when we left. This is the second Nakba.