West Bank: UN human rights report warns of forced displacement from three refugee camps

The report said military, police and other forces were deployed during Israel’s attacks Operation Iron Wall touch on killing civilians, destroying hundreds of homes, damaging roads and other infrastructure, cutting off water and electricity, and blocking humanitarian access to Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps.

Israeli troops went door to door and ordered residents to leave.

Several Palestinian refugees told the story OHCHR that Israeli officers said there would be no more refugee camps and they should “all go to Jordan”.

Widespread destruction

By October 2025, 52 percent of buildings in Jenin refugee camp, 48 percent in Nur Shams, and 36 percent in Tulkarem had been destroyed or damaged.

The report said that the massive, long-term and systematic displacement of more than 33,000 Palestinians from camps during the operation raises serious concerns of crimes against humanity in the form of forced displacement.

It said Israeli forces used airstrikes, armored bulldozers and controlled explosions to make the entire camp uninhabitable because there was no military need – actions it said also raised fears of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing.

Some 102 Palestinians, including 21 children, were killed during the period covered by the report – 46 percent of all killings carried out by Israeli forces in the West Bank during that period.

Shot on the way to pray

Among them were Sondos Shalabi, who was eight months pregnant and shot dead when she tried to escape from the Nur Shams camp, and ten-year-old Saddam Hussein Rajab, who was shot in the stomach in Tulkarem as he waited for his father to walk to the mosque with him.

UN Human Rights Chair Turkish Volker said the way the operation was carried out showed that the aim was to expel as many Palestinians as possible and pave the way for more illegal Israeli settlements.

He called on Israel to end what he called its 59-year occupation of the Palestinian territories and comply with the regulations International Court of Justice‘S discovery, more than two years agoThat they must end their unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as quickly as possible.

On February 23, 2025, Israel’s Defense Minister ordered the military to remain in the three camps and said Palestinian refugees would not be allowed to return.

United Nations Palestine Refugee Relief Agency, UNRWAsay around 33,362 people were still displaced in July this year.