An Israeli military operation of several weeks in several cities of the West Bank has moved around 40,000 Palestinians from their home, in what historians and researchers say they are the greatest movement of civilians in the territory since the Arab-Israeli war in 1967.
Israeli campaigns against Palestinian groups armed in three parts of the Northern West Bank have forced thousands of residents to take shelter with friends and parents, or camp in wedding rooms, schools, mosques, municipal buildings And even a farm hangar.
The Israeli army claims that the operation is only an attempt to stifle growing activism in Jenin, Tulkarem and near the snorkels, targeting armed men who, according to them, have led or plan terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. The Palestinians fear that it is a veiled attempt to permanently move the Palestinians from their home and to exercise greater control over the areas administered by the Palestinian authority, a semi-self-like body which has also fought against activists in recent months.
Many displaced people are the descendants of refugees who were expelled or fled from their houses during the wars surrounding the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, a period known in Arabic under the name of Nakba. The displacement renewed, even if it is temporary, raises painful memories of the central trauma of Palestinian history.
While around 3,000 returned home, most of them remain homeless after more than three weeks – a larger trip than in an Israeli campaign similar to the West Bank in 2002, according to two Palestinians and two Israeli experts on history of the West Bank. That year, the troops made a descent into several cities at the height of a Palestinian uprising, known as the second intifada, which began with demonstrations before leading to a wave of Palestinian attacks against civilians in Israel.
The current figures also overshadow the trip during intra-Palestinian clashes earlier this year, when up to 1,000 Jenin residents left their homes, according to a leadership advice from residents.
As in 2002, some of the people displaced during this new campaign will not have a house to return. The Israeli army has demolished dozens of buildings in the areas it has invaded, tearing the roads, water pipes and power lines to destroy what it says to be patterned traps.
The United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs Coordination said that water and sanitation systems had been destroyed in four dense urban districts, known as refugee camps because they house displaced people in 1948 and their descendants. He added that certain water infrastructure had been contaminated by wastewater.
“We have reached a point where the refugee camps have broken down,” said Hakeem Abu Safeye, who oversees emergency services in the Tulkarem camp. “They are uninhabitable. Even if the army withdraws, we do not know what will remain to be repaired. »»
The full scale of damage is not clear because the soldiers still operate in most of the areas it has invaded, but the United Nations have already recorded serious damage to more than 150 houses in Jenin. In early February, the Israeli army admitted to explode at least 23 buildings, but it refused to confirm the last number of demolished structures.
“The soldiers take up one area after another, destroying houses, infrastructure and roads,” said Ramy Abu Siriye, 53, a hairdresser forced to flee his house in Tulkarem on January 27, the first day of the ‘ Israeli operation.
“The Israelis have two objectives – first, to push the refugees from north of the West Bank to central areas, aimed at completely erasing refugee camps,” said Abu Siriye. “The second objective is to eliminate resistance and weaken the capacity of the Palestinian authority to govern,” added Mr. Abu Siriye.
A spokesperson for Israeli Defense Forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said that the army’s objective was to eliminate militant groups, including Hamas, who launched terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.
“The goal of operations is to prevent terror from putting a few kilometers from the Jewish communities and preventing a rehearsal of October 7,” said Colonel Shoshani, referring to the attack led by Hamas against Israel in October 2023 which Has killed people up to 1,200 and leads to the removal of some 250 hostages.
Colonel Shoshani admitted that, in some cases, people had been ordered to leave specific buildings near what he said to be militant hiding places. But more generally, Colonel Shoshani denied any wider policy “evacuation or forced displacement of the Palestinians,” he said. “If people want to move, they are obviously allowed to do so,” he added. About 3,000 people were able to return to the Al-Faraa camp near Tubas.
But the displaced Palestinians said that in Jenin and Tulkarem, they were invited to leave by soldiers who used loudspeakers to place general evacuation orders.
“We had to leave the camp – the army threatened to shoot us,” said Aws Khader, 29, a supermarket owner who fled Tulkarem on January 27. “They used megaphones, ordering people to leave or have slaughtered,” MM Khader added.
Asked for comments on this subject and similar incidents, the soldiers repeated in a press release that no evacuation order had been issued, but that all those who wanted to leave had not received a safe passage. The press release said the troops operated in Mr. Khader’s district because they had “discovered terrorist infrastructure and weapons that the terrorists had hidden in a bookstore”.
The Palestinians reject the soldiers’ explanations, citing calls by the main ministers of the far -right government of Israel to encourage the flight of the Palestinians into the West Bank, destroy the Palestinian authority and annex the territory.
Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 in Jordan, expeling the Palestinians from several villages close to Israel and causing the theft of hundreds of thousands of others in Jordan. Since then, Israel has gradually anchored its control, building hundreds of colonies, often on private Palestinian land, for hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians, and building a two -level legal structure that criticisms have described as a system of apartheid. Israel firmly denies the accusation.
Efforts to cement Israeli control over the territory accelerated after the current Israeli government has entered into office in 2022.
Bezalel Smotrich, a chief of colonist who became Minister of Finance, was authorized to part of an influential military unit which controls Palestinian construction projects in most of the territory.
His empowerment has increased suspicions on government’s intentions: Mr. Smotrich has published a long plan In 2017, this proposed permanent Israeli control of the territory. Under the plan, the Palestinians would refuse the voting rights, at least at the beginning, and those who did not accept Israeli control would be paid to emigrate or killed if they had recourse to violence.
The government has also imposed growing restrictions on the Palestinian movement in the West Bank; Banned Unrwa, the United Nations agency who takes care of Palestinian refugees and their descendants; And did nothing to limit efforts by far -right Israeli activists to force thousands of Palestinian breeders in distant but strategic territory areas.
“What makes this moment unprecedented is not only the scale of displacement, but also the discourse that accompanies it, which normalizes more and more the idea of a permanent forced displacement,” said Maha Nassar, American Palestinian historian at the University of Arizona.
“This represents an important escalation in the long-standing conflict, which threatens to fundamentally modify the political and demographic landscape of the region,” she added.
Hiba Yazbek contributed Jerusalem’s relationships.
