By car and on foot, through muddy olive groves and snipers’ sight lines, tens of thousands of Palestinians in recent weeks have fled Israeli military operations across the northern West Bank – the largest displacement in the occupied territory since the 1967 Mideast war.
After announcing a widespread crackdown against West Bank fighters on Jan.21 – just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on the restive city of Jenin, as they have dozens of times since Oct.7, 2023, attack.
But unlike past operations, Israeli forces then pushed deeper and more forcefully into several other nearby towns, including Tulkarem, Far’a and Nur Shams, scattering families and stirring bitter memories of the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.
During that war, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel. That Nakba, or “catastrophe,” as Palestinians call it, gave rise to the crowded West Bank towns now under assault and still known as refugee camps.
“This is our nakba,” said Abed Sabagh, 53, who bundled his seven children into the car on Feb.9 as sound bombs blared in Nur Shams camp, where he was born to parents who fled the 1948 war.
Humanitarian officials say they haven’t seen such displacement in the West Bank since the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the territory west of the Jordan River, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, displacing another 300,000 Palestinians.
“This is unprecedented. When you add to this the destruction of infrastructure, we’re reaching a point where the camps are becoming uninhabitable,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for the UN Palestinian refugee agency. More than 40,100 Palestinians have fled their homes in the ongoing military operation, according to the agency.
Experts say that Israel’s tactics in the West Bank are becoming almost indistinguishable from those deployed in Gaza. Already, President Donald Trump’s plan for the mass transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza has emboldened Israel’s far-right to renew calls for annexation of the West Bank.
“The idea of ‘cleansing’ the land of Palestinians is more popular today than ever before,” said Yagil Levy, a professor and head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at Israel’s Open University.
The Israeli army denies issuing evacuation orders in the West Bank. It said troops secure passages for those wanting to leave on their own accord.
Over a dozen displaced Palestinians interviewed in the last week said they did not flee their homes out of fear, but on the orders of Israeli security forces. Journalists in the Nur Shams camp also heard Israeli soldiers shouting through mosque megaphones, ordering people to leave.
Some displaced families said soldiers were polite, knocking on doors and assuring them they could return when the army left. Others said they were ruthless, ransacking rooms, waving rifles and hustling residents out of their homes despite pleas for more time.
“I was sobbing, asking them, ‘Why do you want me to leave my house?’ My baby is upstairs, just let me get my baby please,'” Ayat Abdullah, 30, recalled from a shelter for displaced people in the village of Kafr Al Labd. “They gave us seven minutes. I brought my children, thank God. Nothing else.”
Told to make their own way, Abdullah trudged 10 kilometres on a path lighted only by the glow from her phone as rain turned the ground to mud. She said she clutched her children tight, braving possible snipers that had killed a 23-year-old pregnant woman just hours earlier on Feb.9. Her 5-year-old son, Nidal, interrupted her story, pursing his lips together to make a loud buzzing sound.
“You’re right, my love,” she replied. “That’s the sound the drones made when we left home.”
In the nearby town of Anabta, volunteers moved in and out of mosques and government buildings that have become makeshift shelters – delivering donated blankets, serving bitter coffee, distributing boiled eggs for breakfast and whipping up vats of rice and chicken for dinner.
Associated Press
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