On 27 January 2025, military, Border Police and Shin Bet forces raided the city of Tulkarm and nearby refugee camps as part of Operation Iron Wall, announced by Israel on 21 January 2025. The operation, which initially focused on Jenin, was expanded on 27 January 2025 to include Tulkarm and Tulkarm R.C., and about a week and a half later, on 8 February 2025, Israeli forces also raided nearby Nur Shams R.C.
The car that Yazan Abu Shu’lah was driving. Used under Section 27a
After hearing about what was happening in Tulkarm R.C. and Jenin R.C., some residents of Nur Shams decided to flee before the army forces actively expelled them. Eight-month-pregnant Sundus Shalabi (20), her husband Yazan Abu Shu’lah (26), and his brother Bilal (20) were among them. The three left their home at 3:30 A.M. on Sunday, 9 February 2025. They got into their car and soon came across a large number of soldiers. Yazan, who was driving, tried to back away, but the soldiers fired at the car, and he was shot in the head. Yazan lost control of the car, and it rolled down a slope until it came to a stop.
Bilal and Sundus got out of the car, and moments later, soldiers approached, arrested Bilal and took him to where the other soldiers were standing. This was the last time Sundus Shalabi was seen alive. According to Bilal, she was not injured when the soldiers separated them. Haaretz reported that, according to an initial investigation by the army, Sundus managed to get out of the car and was then shot in the chest because soldiers became suspicious when she “looked suspiciously at the ground.” A hospital report indicates she was shot in the back. Due to military activity in the camp, Palestinian emergency crews were not able to access the site for several hours. By the time they arrived, Sundus was dead, and her fetus could not be saved. Yazan Abu Shu’lah was taken to the hospital in serious condition. As of 14 May 2025 he is still in the hospital.
We got in the car, and my brother Yazan drove. We barely got 200 meters away from the house, when we suddenly found ourselves in front of a lot of soldiers – I estimate there were more than a hundred there. Yazan was shocked when he saw the soldiers. They pointed the laser sights on their rifles at our car. He tried to drive back, but barely managed to back up one meter before they started shooting at us. They fired about five to 10 bullets. One of the bullets hit Yazan in the head. It knocked him out, and he lost control of the car. He pressed hard on the gas pedal while the car was in reverse, and it rolled down the slope.
From the testimony of Bilal Abu
Bilal Abu Shu’lah was held by the soldiers for about 20 hours, during which they used him as a human shield several times. Among other things, around noon he was taken to the home of the al-Ashqar family, where 17 family members were staying at the time due to the raid on the camp. The Israeli forces entered the yard and attached explosives to the door leading into the living room. Rahaf al-Ashqar (21) and her father Fouad al-Ashqar (51) were in the room at the time. When they noticed the soldiers in the yard and saw through the window the wires running to the door, they tried to escape to the back of the house, but before they could get away, the soldiers blew up the door. Rahaf sustained severe injuries all over her body. She managed to call for help once before passing. Her father, Fouad, was injured in the legs by fragments.
The IDF Spokesperson claimed that the soldiers were told an armed operative was located in the house and that they called for the occupants to vacate the premises over a PA system before entering it. However, B’Tselem’s investigation indicates people inside the house never heard such a call. An article in Haaretz also noted that the military’s initial inquiry indicated the soldiers did not issue a call for residents to vacate. The military made the same claim in a previous incident in which soldiers fired at a home in Muthallath a-Shuhada, killing 2-year-old Layla al-Khatib, but as in this case, the family never heard a call to vacate the home. After the explosion, the soldiers ordered Bilal to go into the house and tell all the men to come out. The soldiers then entered the house and remained in it for about 15 minutes. While inside, they conducted a search and checked Rahaf’s pulse, but left without attempting to provide her or her father with any sort of medical attention, taking Bilal and Rahaf’s uncle with them. The uncle was later issued an administrative detention order for six months.sort of medical attention, taking Bilal and Rahaf’s uncle with them. The uncle was later issued an administrative detention order for six months.
I went to peek out the window and saw wires running from the main gate to the front door. I also saw soldiers walking around the yard. I figured the wires were laid to blow up the front door with explosives. It all happened very quickly and it was terrifying. Rahaf tried to escape from the living room to the rooms where the rest of the family were, but then there was a loud explosion. I saw my daughter fall. She didn’t make it out of the living room in time… I heard my daughter say: “Help me, help me,” and then she stopped talking and didn’t move anymore. –
From the testimony of Fouad al-Ashqar
That evening, Iyas al-Akhras (19), a Hamas military wing operative, was killed in a fire exchange between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians in the al-Manshiyah neighborhood in the center of the camp. His body was found a few hours later in an alley and taken to the hospital.
The soldiers kept Bilal Abu Shu’lah until about 11:00 P.M., at which point he returned to his home in the camp. The next day, Israeli forces expelled all residents of the al-Madares neighborhood, where the Abu Shu’lah and al-Ashqar families live. As the military operation continued, Rahaf al-Ashqar was laid to rest nine days after she was killed. Senior Israeli officials have said military activity in refugee camps in the northern West Bank is expected to last a year, and residents will not be permitted to return to their homes. Refugee camp residents have been displaced to nearby villages and towns.
B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi collected the testimonies.
Bilal Abu Shu’lah, 20, said in his testimony on 12 March 2025:
On Sunday, 9 February 2025, at around 3:30 A.M., I left the house with my brother Yazan (26) and his wife Sundus (20), who was eight months pregnant. Israeli forces raided the camp the night before, 8 February 2025, and we wanted to leave our neighborhood, al-Madares, which is southwest of the center of the refugee camp, to keep Sundus and the baby safe. We couldn’t wait for the new baby, whom we were going to name Seif. We were very worried because of what we heard happened during the raid on Tulkarm R.C., which started about ten days earlier. We were going to go to my sister’s house in Kafr a-Labad.
We got in the car, and my brother Yazan drove. We barely got 200 meters away from the house, when we suddenly found ourselves in front of a lot of soldiers – I estimate there were more than a hundred there. Yazan was shocked when he saw the soldiers. They pointed the laser sights on their rifles at our car. He tried to drive back, but barely managed to back up one meter before they started shooting at us. They fired about five to 10 bullets.
One of the bullets hit Yazan in the head. It knocked him out, and he lost control of the car. He pressed hard on the gas pedal while the car was in reverse, and it rolled down the slope. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt, because I managed to duck as soon as the soldiers opened fire. While the car was rolling down the slope, I heard Sundus scream and then she went silent. She passed out. I tried to wake Yazan up, but he didn’t wake up. I yelled and called out to Sundus until she woke up, but she was in a state of shock and anxiety. Then, Sundus and I got out of the car. Yazan remained unconscious behind the wheel. I called an ambulance.
A lot of soldiers came to the spot where the car ended up and led me back to where they fired at us. Once we were there, they searched me and checked my ID card. Then they forced me to lie face down and started kicking me. The soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded me. After about 15 minutes, a local car drove by. The passengers must have also been trying to leave the camp. The soldiers ordered the driver to stop, and one of them took off my blindfold and sent me to the car. I was ordered to tell them to turn themselves in to the soldiers and to take the key from them and give it to the soldiers. I did it, and then the soldiers arrested the guy who was driving the car and ordered his mother and aunt, who were with him in the car, to walk home.
The soldiers held me for about 20 hours. At first, they took me to Kamal a-Gharifi’s building, where they were holding other people. I was handcuffed and blindfolded most of the time. Around noon, they took me to the al-Ashqar family’s house. The soldiers attached explosives to the front door. I heard them counting down from 20 to 1. Before the explosion, they took off my blindfold and moved me about 15 meters away from the entrance to the house. After that, they forced me to go inside the house and tell the men to come out.
When I went in, I found a young woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Her father was also injured. I told the men to turn themselves in to the army, and I went back out. I told the soldiers that there were two wounded people inside. The soldiers took the men from the family outside.
Afterwards, the soldiers took me back to the a-Gharifi family home, which they used as a military post while the family members were still inside the house. The soldiers also brought a guy from the al-Ashqar family there, sat him down next to me, and one of the soldiers began to question him about weapons possession.
Fifteen minutes later, the soldiers ordered me to accompany them to other houses. In one of those houses, they ate and drank. They lifted my blindfold and removed the zip ties from my hands. They stayed there for about three hours, during which some of them sat down to rest and some slept. Then the soldiers took me to another building. They kicked a family out of there and took over the building. Then they let me go.
It was 11:00 P.M. by then. I didn’t know what happened to my brother Yazan, and I didn’t know then that Sundus, his wife, had been killed. The last time I saw her, when we were near the car and the soldiers took me, she wasn’t injured at all; she was just in shock. I later found out that a Palestinian ambulance came to where Yazan and Sundus were around 9:00 A.M., so almost six hours after the soldiers shot us.
I got home completely exhausted. I slept until the next afternoon. Then, in the afternoon, my father and I called the Red Crescent to coordinate leaving the camp and to find out what happened to Yazan and Sundus. We were evacuated from the camp in a Red Crescent tuk-tuk [three-wheeled vehicle]. On the way out of the camp, soldiers checked our IDs and made sure our exit from the camp had been coordinated.
We went to Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm and found out that Yazan had been transferred to a hospital in Nablus. We were told that Sundus was in the hospital morgue, and that she had been killed by gunfire. After that, we went to Kafr a-Labad.
Yazan is still in the hospital. He’s now in the ICU at al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah. His condition is serious, and it’s not looking good.
Rahaf’s father, Fouad al-Ashqar, 51, a father of seven, said in a testimony he gave on 6 March 2025:
On Sunday, 9 February 2025, I was with my family in our home in the al-Madares neighborhood in Nur Shams R.C. At that point, the Israeli army had already raided the camp with dozens of military vehicles and bulldozers. Israeli soldiers controlled all entrances to the camp and also climbed onto the roofs of tall buildings. There were no clashes in the camp at the time, only soldier raids on homes.
Around noon, my daughter, Rahaf, 21, heard a noise in the yard. She looked out the window and saw soldiers opening the yard gate and laying wires on the ground. I went to peek out the window and saw wires running from the main gate to the front door. I also saw soldiers walking around the yard. I figured the wires were laid to blow up the front door with explosives.
It all happened very quickly and it was terrifying. Rahaf tried to escape from the living roomto the rooms where the rest of the family was, but then there was a loud explosion. I saw my daughter fall. She didn’t make it out of the living room in time. She was seriously injured in the front of her body, face, abdomen and legs. I was injured in the thighs by fragments. I heard my daughter say: “Help me, help me,” and then she stopped talking and didn’t move anymore.
The rest of the family came into the living room to see what happened, and my wife started screaming and crying. At about the same time, a group of soldiers entered the house. One of them checked my daughter, who was lying on the floor. The rest searched the house.
About half an hour after the explosion, the Red Crescent managed to reach the house. They evacuated me along with Rahaf, who was already dead. Thabet Thabet Hospital was surrounded by soldiers, so they took us to another hospital in Tulkarm. At the hospital, the doctors removed the fragments from my body. I was kept in the hospital for three days.
Rahaf’s mother, Kifah al-Ashqar, 53, a mother of seven, said in her testimony on 6 March 2025:
On Sunday, 9 February 2025, I was in the children’s room in our house with my husband’s father. We have four bedrooms, a living room, and a yard, and because of the raid by Israeli forces on the camp, relatives were staying with us, so we were a total of 17 people.
Around noon, I suddenly heard a loud explosion inside the house. I rushed to the living room, and before I even entered, I heard my daughter say: “Help me, help me.” When I went in, I saw her lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. My husband’s legs were injured, and he was leaning on the sofa.
Around that time, many Israeli soldiers entered the house. I yelled at them: “Why did you kill my daughter and my husband? What are they guilty of? What did they do?” No one answered me. The soldiers stayed in our house for 15-20 minutes, and in the meantime, I called the Red Crescent. They arrived a few minutes after the soldiers left and evacuated my wounded husband and my daughter Rahaf, who was already dead.
The next day, the soldiers expelled the residents of our neighborhood, and it was only then that I managed to get to the hospital and visit my husband. After that, we moved to my daughter Riham’s house. She’s married and lives in Dahyat Kafa, south of Tulkarm.
I don’t know why the soldiers blew up our front door like that. No one in the house has problems with the army or anyone else. My daughter Rahaf was laid to rest in the camp’s cemetery a full nine days after she was killed because of the long military operation in the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camps.