West Bank becoming ‘battlefield’, dozens killed in recent weeks: UNRWA chief

“The West Bank is becoming a battlefield,” Philippe Lazzarini warned on X, saying that “more than 50 people, including children, have been reported killed since the Israeli forces’ operation started”.

“This must end,” he added.

Israel’s military began a major raid in the West Bank’s north a over a month ago, just after a truce went into effect in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and carries out regular raids against Palestinians, but the current offensive in the north is the longest continuous one in the territory in two decades.

Israel on Sunday announced its troops would remain for many months in refugee camps in the northern West Bank, after tens of thousands of Palestinians living there were displaced by an intensifying, weeks-long onslaught.

The expansion of Israeli operations in the West Bank come as tensions surge over a fragile truce accord in Gaza, which has largely halted more than 15 months of devastating war.

Lazzarini said that the “destruction of public infrastructure” in the West Bank and that “bulldozing roads and access restrictions are common place”.

“People’s lives have been turned upside down, bringing back traumas and loss,” he continued, adding that “around 40,000 people have been forced to flee their homes especially in refugee camps in the north”.

“Fear, uncertainty and grief once again prevail.”

With Palestinian camps lying “in ruins”, Lazzarini added that “more than 5,000 children who normally go to UNRWA schools have been deprived of education, some for over 10 weeks now”.

“Patients cannot access healthcare, families are cut off from water, electricity and other basic services,” he said.

“More and more people are relying on humanitarian aid at a time aid agencies are overstretched and severely under-resourced.”

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settler attacks have killed at least 900 Palestinians in the West Bank, including many militants, according to the Palestinian health ministry.