By Qassam Muaddi / Mondoweiss
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a statement on Monday that the number of Palestinians Israel has displaced in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of its ongoing offensive has reached 40,000.
Dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” the ongoing Israeli military invasion overtook the northern West Bank in mid-January, leading to the forcible displacement of thousands of residents. On February 10, UNRWA said that “the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace.”
According to UNRWA, the number refers to Palestinians displaced from the Tulkarem, Jenin, and al-Far’a refugee camps, where the Israeli offensive has expanded. This marks the longest-running Israeli military campaign in the West Bank since the Second Intifada.
“Forced displacement in the occupied West Bank is the result of an increasingly dangerous and coercive environment,” the UNRWA statement said. “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 also added that the Palestinian Authority’s military operation in Jenin refugee camp prior to the current Israeli offensive “further exacerbated displacement from Jenin camp.”
On Sunday, Israel expanded its offensive to the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, displacing dozens of families from their homes after two days of no electricity and water for Palestinian residents. Israeli soldiers opened fire on a Palestinian car leaving the Nur Shams refugee camp, fatally wounding a pregnant woman and her unborn child, while seriously wounding her husband who was driving. Israel had already displaced 90% and 80% of the populations Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, respectively, leaving them nearly empty.
Since then, the Israeli army has escalated its offensive and sowed wide-ranging destruction to civilian infrastructure in West Bank refugee camps. Last week, Israeli forces detonated 20 apartment buildings in the Jenin refugee camp, one of the largest single demolitions in the West Bank in years. Local residents and media sources compared the effect of the destruction to the “fire belt” strategy that Israel has employed in Gaza — involving the concentrated and repetitive bombing of small areas that destroy entire residential blocks.
The Israeli army also expanded its offensive to the northern Jordan Valley, closing off the town of Tammoun and forcibly displacing its residents following a Palestinian shooting attack at a military outpost near the town.
The Israeli offensive comes as far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich continues to call for the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
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Qassam Muaddi
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss. Follow him on Twitter/X at @QassaMMuaddi.
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