TULKAREM (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Israeli occupation forces (IOF) began home demolition operations on Monday in the Manshiyya neighborhood in Nur Shams refugee camp, east of the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.
According to local sources, the IOF stormed the Manshiyya neighborhood, backed by a huge D10 military bulldozer, and began demolishing residential homes and razing the surrounding areas amid tight military measures.
Last night, the IOF notified five families living in the neighborhood—the Abu Harb, the Al-Alajmah, the Abdullah, and the Shihadeh families—to evacuate their homes, consisting of 15 residential housing units, setting an evacuation deadline between 8 am and 12 pm.
This comes after a previous warning issued by the occupation authorities last Thursday stipulating the demolition of 106 residential structures: 58 buildings in the Tulkarem camp and 48 houses in the Nur Shams camp.
In another escalation, the IOF has prevented since the early morning hours a number of the residents from reaching their homes in the camps to collect their belongings, despite prior coordination. They even stopped Palestinian Red Crescent crews and prevented them from approaching.
The ongoing aggression has caused the forced displacement of approximately 4,200 families, more than 25,000 people, from the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps. Estimates indicate that 396 homes have been completely destroyed, and 2,573 others partially damaged. In addition, the entrances and alleys of the two camps were closed with earthen barriers, exacerbating the suffering of the residents.
