UN says Israel demolished more than 1,500 West Bank facilities in 2024

The UN data, published on 29 November, indicated that 3,637 Palestinians have been displaced as a result of an ongoing Israeli demolition campaign.

The destroyed infrastructure included inhabited residences (700), agricultural infrastructure (398), and livelihood-related assets (205), such as shops and businesses.

According to OCHA’s findings, the most targeted areas in the West Bank were located near the city of Tulkarm, which has faced a greater number of Israeli raids and demolitions over the past year, as well as other West Bank cities.

The Tulkarm refugee camp is at the top of the list of areas with demolished infrastructure (171), with the Nur Shams refugee camp next (118).

The Jenin refugee camp, which has been the focus of an ongoing Israeli military campaign, was also frequently targeted (83), according to the data.

According to the figures, 40,557 Palestinians have been impacted by these demolitions since the start of the year.

Israel has long wielded housing demolitions as a means to displace the occupied West Bank’s Palestinian population.

Since the 7 October Hamas-led attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza, however, the practice has been turbocharged, with Israeli bulldozers tearing down people’s homes on a near-daily basis.

Overseeing the drive is Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, who also wields power over authorities in the West Bank – and is a settler himself.

Israel has long used home demolitions as a form of collective punishment, targeting the houses of Palestinians “suspected of carrying out attacks” on Israelis.

Demolitions are often ordered on the grounds that buildings are constructed without permits, but these are all but impossible for most Palestinians to obtain.

Since October, Palestinians across the West Bank and East Jerusalem are waking up to find bulldozers flanked by soldiers preparing to tear down their homes, with no idea that the demolition was imminent.

In January, a group of UN experts called for action to stop Israel’s “systematic and deliberate” demolition of Palestinian structures.

“Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.