Wednesday marks 30 days since Israeli forces began their assault on Jenin which then spread to other parts of the northern West Bank, including Tulkarem and its Nur Shams refugee camp. At least 26 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin since January 21.
The army has also deployed hundreds of soldiers and bulldozers that demolished houses and tore up vital infrastructure in the overcrowded camp, forcing almost all of its residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Jenin Mayor Mohammed Jarrar said the Israeli army “adopted a pattern of random destruction” in the camp and its surroundings in order to make the camp “uninhabitable”.
The mass displacement of Palestinians from various parts of the West Bank in recent weeks marks the largest displacement operation in decades.
The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 Nakba around the creation of Israel, have long been major centres for resistance groups fighting Israeli occupation.
They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as the ceasefire was agreed in the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip, has been on an unusually large scale.
According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, about 17,000 people have now been forced out of Jenin refugee camp, leaving it almost deserted. In Nur Shams, 6,000 people, or about two-thirds of its population, have been forced out, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarem camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee.
“The Civil Defence, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.”
Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power.
Humanitarian officials say they have not seen such displacement in the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured the territory west of the Jordan River, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
“This is unprecedented. When you add to this the destruction of infrastructure, we’re reaching a point where the camps are becoming uninhabitable,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
