Israel targets refugee camps

The Israeli occupation launched Operation Iron Wall on 21 January 2025. It targeted West Bank refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams, displacing 32,000 Palestinians and obliterating homes and civilian infrastructure.

Israel continues to deny displaced populations the right of return, making this the largest West Bank forced displacement since 1967.

Operation Iron Wall: Israel’s goes after refugee camps

A new Human Rights Watch report, documents this military campaign.

The timing is difficult to ignore.

Two days after a temporary ceasefire in Gaza was reached, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) undertook massive raids. They deployed Apache helicopters, drones, armoured vehicles, bulldozers, and hundreds of ground troops to clear the three refugee camps.

Soldiers stormed homes, ransacked possessions, interrogated civilians, and issued evacuation orders via drones and loudspeakers, giving little time or explanation.

Displacement occurred under active military operations and threat of sniper fire. Vulnerable groups, including wheelchair users, faced extra hardships. Occupation forces often cruelly forcing them to abandon their assistive devices.

Plans to permanently displace 32,000 Palestinians

Satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Satellite Centre confirm the scale of destruction.

Israel has demolished and damaged more than 850 buildings across Palestinian refugee camps. Meanwhile, extensive bulldozing of roads cleared the way for military access.

The IOF claim these measures are necessary “to reshape and stabilise” the area and combat “terror”.

They failed to justify the displacement and demolition as crucial military necessities, and did not take appropriate measures to safeguard displaced populations. They provided no shelter, food or water, nor evacuation routes, as required under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Statements by senior Israeli occupation officials made clear their intent to make displacement permanent. Defense Minister Israel Katz told the IDF:

not to allow residents to return and terrorism to grow again.

Meanwhile Bezalel Smotrich threatened that camps:

will be turned into uninhabitable ruins.

Forced displacement constitutes a war crime when the displacement is the result of illegal attacks. But when it is part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, it is classified as a crime against humanity. The scale, organisation, and deliberate nature of Operation Iron Wall’s forced displacement fulfil these criteria.

A campaign of ethnic cleansing

According to Human Rights Watch the campaign amounts to ethnic cleansing. The policy is specifically designed to violently remove an ethnic or religious group from a geographic area.

Displaced Palestinians are living in terrible conditions.

Médecins Sans Frontières has reported worsening health, unmet needs, and inadequate access to healthcare, food, and water supplies.

The occupation’s restrictions on movement and limited humanitarian access make these challenges worse. Israel’s closure of camps has barred UNRWA school access for thousands of children.

Many families live in cramped makeshift shelters, where privacy and dignity are strained.

They face repeated forced relocations and Israeli occupation authorities have failed to meet their obligations under international law.

Unspeakable terror

The report’s testimonies speak of the terror experienced.

Nadim M. from Tulkarem described being zip-tied and threatened by snipers while being forced out with his family. Anoud C., who was undergoing intensive treatment for lung cancer, was at home in Jenin camp at the time of the raid. She said:

I could hear explosions, there were four explosions first, before the helicopter began to shoot over our heads and at the people.

Anoud and her family fled from their home with nothing, holding a white cloth. Fatima B. escaped the Jenin raid under airstrikes and warnings broadcast by drones. There were also fatalities, including the pregnant Rahaf al-Ashqar, who the Israeli forces killed when they detonated an explosive at her home in Nur Shams.

Since the camps’ evictions, the IOF has consistently barred residents from returning. They have made sure the damage has been long lasting damage. These actions breach Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting “wanton destruction”. But the occupation’s military has failed to justify demolitions or prove an operational need. Civilians continue to suffer the consequences.

Israel must answer for its crimes

UNRWA established the three refugee camps in the early 1950s. They were to house Palestinians expelled from their homes following ‘Israel’s’ creation in 1948.

Those refugees, and their descendants, had resided in these camps since then.

The occupation’s military campaign against these refugee camps perpetuates a familiar pattern of repression and dispossession. Israeli occupation policies reflect apartheid and persecution. ‘Israel’ has carried out decades of settlement growth and violence against Palestinian communities. Administrative detentions have reached record highs since the genocide started.

Human Rights Watch is urging governments to investigate and prosecute the growing litany of Israeli war crimes — and they must act now.

Governments must also use sanctions, arms embargoes, trade suspensions, and enforcement of ICC arrest warrants to pressure Israel to stop its crimes. Without international intervention, human rights violations and ethnic cleansing risk becoming entrenched and normalised, worsening the humanitarian catastrophe, and prolonging injustice.

Featured image via Electronic Intifada/Mohammed Nasser.