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Israeli army destroys 600 homes in Jenin refugee camp: Municipality
21,000 Palestinians have fled camp, according to media committee in Jenin refugee camp
Omer Aydin and Ikram Kouachi, Anadolu Acensi
29.03.2025
ISTANBUL—The municipality of Jenin reported on Saturday that its refugee camp in the northern West Bank has become uninhabitable following the Israeli army’s destruction of approximately 600 homes, amid the ongoing Israeli offensive that has persisted for over two months.
A statement from the Jenin municipality said: The Jenin Refugee Camp has become entirely uninhabitable due to the continued Israeli assault on the 68th day, with widespread bulldozing, burning of homes, and turning others into military barracks.
The municipality added that the Israeli forces are also enforcing a severe blockade on the Jenin governorate, which is home to around 360,000 people.
“The Israeli army has destroyed around 600 homes and completely wiped out the camp’s infrastructure, it said.
Meanwhile, the media committee in the Jenin refugee camp announced that 3,250 housing units within the camp have been rendered uninhabitable due to the ongoing assault.
The committee also reported that the Israeli occupation forces have brought in reinforcements, including bulldozers, to the camp, continuing their efforts to widen roads, clear paths, and expand the area under their control.
Additionally, live ammunition continues to be fired around the camp, with intense aerial surveillance from drones and ongoing infantry movements.
At least 21,000 Palestinians have fled the camp, taking refuge in the city of Jenin and nearby villages in the governorate, according to the media committee’s statement.
Meanwhile, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces are continuing their assault on the city of Tulkarem and its refugee camp for the 62nd consecutive day, with military reinforcements and bulldozers being deployed to expand their control.
Palestinian authorities have raised concerns, saying that the ongoing Israeli military assault is part of a broader plan by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to annex the occupied West Bank and declare sovereignty over it, effectively ending the two-state solution.
Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank, where at least 939 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Original article
As part of West Bank offensive, Israel conducts largest demolition in years
The Israeli army is expanding its offensive in the northern West Bank and employing some of the same tactics that it has used in Gaza over the past 15 months, including the mass expulsion of residents, airstrikes, and large-scale demolitions.
Smokes rises above Jenin refugee camp as Israeli colonial forces continue to raid Jenin and the camp for a fourth day as part of a major military operation to crack down on armed resistance, 24 January 2025. Israeli armed bulldozers have entered the camp, destroying infrastructure and homes. Witnesses report that some houses are being burned by Israeli forces. Drones are constantly hovering over the camp, observing as many Palestinian families were forced to flee in the past few days. Entrances and exits are blocked by the Israeli forces, preventing health workers and journalists from entering the refugee camp.
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 local journalists, 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 residential blocks.
The mass demolition is the latest in Israel’s ongoing offensive in northern Gaza. 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. However, numbers from Palestinian sources indicate the 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 one of the largest death tolls 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.
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, according to Jenin’s mayor Muhammad Jarrar. In Tulkarem, around 75% of the 9,900 residents have also been forced to leave, according to Tulkarem’s governor Abdallah Kameel, while in Tammoun, the Israeli army warned the families it forced to leave not to go back at any time earlier than three weeks, according to Tubas governor Ahmad Asaad.
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 the mass displacement of 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.
New Israeli Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir stated last Sunday that 2025 “will be a year of war.”
On Monday, Smotrich welcomed Netanyahu’s appointment of a new chief of staff to the Israeli army, Eyal 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 this will be the year that Israel annexes 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.
Original article
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