WEST BANK (Palestine Foundation Information Center) UNRWA has said that the number of Palestinians Israel has displaced in the occupied West Bank, since the beginning of its large-scale military operation, has reached 40,000 refugees.
“The forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace,” UNRWA warned in a statement on Monday.
“Since the start of operation ‘Iron Wall’ by the Israeli forces on 21 January, several refugee camps have been nearly emptied of their residents. The operation, ongoing for nearly three weeks, is now the single longest in the West Bank since the second intifada,” UNRWA explained.
“Starting in Jenin camp, the operation has expanded to Tulkarem, Nur Shams, and El Fari’ah refugee camps and led to the displacement of 40,000 Palestine refugees,” said.
“Jenin camp stands empty today, evoking memories of the second intifada. This scene stands to be repeated in other camps,” UNRWA added.
“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, armored bulldozers, controlled detonations, and advanced weaponry by the Israeli Forces has become commonplace — a spillover of the war in Gaza.”
The UN agency also said that the Palestinian Authority’s security operation in Jenin refugee camp, which started before the current Israeli offensive, “further exacerbated displacement from Jenin camp.”
On Sunday, Israel expanded its offensive to Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, displacing dozens of families from their homes. Israeli soldiers started their raid with opening fire at a Palestinian car leaving the Nur Shams refugee camp, killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child, while seriously wounding her husband who was driving.
Since its current large-scale military operation started, the Israeli occupation army has been escalating its offensive, killing and kidnaping Palestinian civilians and wreaking wide-ranging destruction on civilian infrastructure, especially in the northern West Bank refugee camps.
Last week, Israeli forces detonated at least 20 apartment buildings in 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 had pursued in Gaza — involving concentrated and repetitive bombardment of small areas that destroy entire residential blocks.
The Israeli army also expanded its military aggression to the northern Jordan Valley, closing off the town of Tamun and forcibly displacing its residents.
