Displaced Palestinians want return to West Bank refugee camp homes, plans threaten camps’ erasure
Displaced Palestinians protesting at the entrance to the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, calling for their right to return to their homes in the camp, 18 November 2025
Qassam Muaddi reports in Mondoweiss on 3 December 2025:
It has been well over 200 days since the people of the Tulkarem, Nur Shams, and Jenin refugee camps were forced out of their homes by the Israeli army during its offensive in the northern West Bank dubbed “Operation Iron Wall.” Over 40,000 Palestinians from these camps have been displaced for the past eleven months, many of them living in deplorable conditions, and without a clear return to their homes on the horizon.
These thousands of families have been displaced within their own cities, and are totally reliant upon community resources for survival. Israeli forces are now stationed in the now-depopulated camps, and has kept them empty as it aims to uproot armed Palestinian resistance groups, which were based in the camps before the Israel’s operation.
Last Thursday, Human Rights Watch released a report based on its analysis of satellite imagery, concluding that about 850 buildings in the three refugee camps were destroyed or sustained heavy damage within six months of the start of the Iron Wall offensive in January. Human Rights Watch stated that “Israeli forces committed forcible displacement in violation of the law of occupation under international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes.