Israeli forces conducted an unprecedented escalation in the West Bank over the weekend by detonating 20 apartment buildings in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. According to some reports, the move constituted the largest single demolition operation conducted in the West Bank since 1967.
According to reports, the Israeli army warned Israelis in the nearby settlements that they would hear large explosions as troops wired an entire residential block in Jenin’s Damaj neighborhood with explosives. Local residents and media sources compared the effect of the destruction to the “fire belt” strategy that Israel has employed in Gaza — involving the concentrated and repetitive bombing of small areas that destroy entire blocks.
The mass demolition is the latest in Israel’s ongoing offensive in the northern West Bank. Israel has so far killed 25 Palestinians as part of the offensive on Jenin launched two weeks ago, dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Israeli army claims that it has killed 50 Palestinian “terrorists” and arrested more than 100. But numbers from Palestinian sources indicate majority of those who have been killed are civilians. The armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, has only recognized three of its members as having been killed during the operation, two in Tulkarem and one in Jenin.
Among the victims of the wide-ranging offensive is a two-year-old girl, Leila al-Khatib, who was killed by Israeli fire during a raid near Jenin. The latest victim was an elderly man, 73-year-old Waleed Lahlouh, who was killed on Sunday by an Israeli sniper while going back to check on his house in the camp.
Israel began its offensive in mid-January with a large attack on Jenin, but has since expanded it to Tulkarem and Tubas, also located in the northern West Bank. In Tulkarem, Israeli forces have continued to demolish houses in the Tulkarem refugee camp and other infrastructure in the city, including the external stairs of the Tulkarem courthouse. In Tubas, Israeli forces raided the Faraa refugee camp and arrested a number of Palestinians, while in the nearby town of Tammoun, Israeli troops forced inhabitants to leave the outskirts of the town. Also in Tammoun, Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians in an airstrike last Thursday, marking the largest death toll in a single airstrike in the West Bank so far.
The forced displacement of Palestinians from their towns and refugee camps has been the main new characteristic of the current offensive. In Jenin, nearly 90% of the camp’s 17,000 residents have left the camp, according to Jenin’s mayor Muhammad Jarrar. In Tulkarem, around 75% of the camp’s 9,900 people have been forced to leave, according to Tulkarem’s governor Abdallah Kameel. In Tammoun, the Israeli army warned the families it forced to leave not to go back any time earlier than three weeks, Tubas governor Ahmad Asaad said.
The UN agency for the relief of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said in a statement on Monday that it has been unable to deliver its services in the Jenin refugee camp for months, and that 13 of its schools across the northern West Bank remain closed.
Earlier last week, Israel’s war minister, Israel Katz, said in a televised statement from the Jenin camp that Israeli forces would not leave Jenin even after the end of the offensive. Katz also stated that Israel would expand the offensive to the rest of the West Bank.
The Israeli escalation in the West Bank comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Washington, D.C. to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, both of whom are expected to meet on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, among other topics, like the policy towards Iran and the situation in the West Bank.
Over the past two weeks, Trump repeatedly called for Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians en. masse from the Gaza Strip, a move criticized as a call for ethnic cleansing. Although both Egypt and Jordan officially voiced their rejection of the proposition, Trump insisted on his confidence that both Arab countries “will do it.” Trump’s call for mass displacing Palestinians from Gaza was welcomed by far-right Israeli leaders, including former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Smotrich had said in a speech during a meeting held by the settlers’ Yesha Council back in November that Israel should “encourage” the emigration of 2.2 million Palestinians from Gaza (that is, all of Gaza’s population), adding that such a massive expulsion “would set a precedent” to do the same in the West Bank. Some analysts have estimated that Netanyahu will probably ask Trump to give Israel a free hand in the West Bank in exchange for going ahead with the second phase of the ceasefire talks in Gaza.
On Monday Smotrich welcomed Netanyahu’s appointment of a new chief of staff to the Israeli army, Yael Zamir, who has been described as close to Netanyahu and the Israeli right. Zamir stated last Sunday that 2025 “will be a year of war,” echoing Smotrich’s previous statements that the current year will be the one of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.
These developments come amid Israel’s official ban against UNRWA in Palestine, which entered into force last Thursday. This plan threatens to do away with one of the few remaining lifelines for Palestinian refugee communities, which are simultaneously under a brutal military campaign. On Sunday, UNRWA said that it had not received any warning from the Israeli army on its operations in the West Bank and that it couldn’t contact the Israeli army, as Israeli law bans any state body from contacting the agency.
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