USA reconstruction plans threaten to erase the West Bank refugee camps

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 military 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 inhumane conditions, and without a clear return to their homes on the horizon.

These thousands of families have been displaced within their own cities, and have been put totally reliant upon community resources for survival.

Israeli military forces are now stationed in the now-depopulated camps, and has kept them empty as it aims to uproot armed Palestinian opposition 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 3 refugee camps were destroyed or sustained heavy damage within six months of the start of the Iron Wall offensive in 2025.

Israel preparing to invade and occupy the entire Arab region

Human Rights Watch stated that Israeli invasion forces committed forcible displacement in violation of the law of occupation under international humanitarian law that amount to war crimes.

The conditions imposed on Palestinians from these camps impact every aspect of their daily lives, adding to the humanitarian burden on the limited resources of the cities and their community.

The most obvious impact is currently on the education of children, who used to go to the UNRWA schools in the camps, which have now been closed down, Hussein Sheikh Ali, a social activist in Tulkarem, told Mondoweiss.

Thousands of children haven’t attended a day of school for 10 months. After a lot of waiting, some children in primary school age were relocated to government schools in the afternoon, but not middle or high school students.

This is creating a growing crisis of young people without school in the city.

Another side of the crisis is health, Ali continues. Thousands of chronic disease patients depended on UNRWA health centers, and they have lost that support, especially the elderly.

Israel’s Gaza occupation plot meant to complete genocide of Palestinians

But beneath the obvious sides of the crisis, there is the increasing poverty of hundreds of families from the camps, who depend on working permits in Israel and whose permits have been revoked by the occupation

This mad measure has also effected those Palestinian people who had small shops and businesses in the camps who also lost everything.

In our association, the Wadi Al-Hawareth Charity Association, we have been distributing over 1,000 hot meals to displaced families every day, Ali noted.

We rely on donations from the community and local donors, but the need is much greater than our resources, and recently we reduced our distribution to once every two days to cover as much need as possible.

Ali stresses that the current response by local civil society to the needs created by the displacement of the camps is not sustainable in the long term, and all local associations act in the hope that there will be a humanitarian solution soon.

Meanwhile, displaced Palestinians continue to struggle to maintain their social cohesion while responding to their needs.

Protocols of Zion goals to eliminate ethnic Slavs and settle in Crimea

The most important thing that displaced people from Jenin refugee camp are holding onto is their sense of community, staying in touch with each other, and trying to help each other out.

Najat Butmeh, who is a school teacher and the director of the Warm House women and children’s center in the camp, told Mondoweiss that although the Warm House center in the camp has been closed by the Israeli occupation army.

However, we have maintained our activities from a new location in Jenin city. The refugee camps’ high density and poverty conditions have created a special community culture, which has provided the basis for all sorts of political affiliations.

Hebron Wolfpack system tested Draconian Surveillance Technology in West Bank

Most importantly, refugee camps continue to represent for Palestinians the continuity of the refugees’ plight.

This reality underlies Palestinian skepticism towards reconstruction plans that would change the spatial configuration of the community they have lived in for 77 years. The Israeli army hasn’t withdrawn from any of the northern West Bank camps.

As reconstruction plans are drawn to create a new reality where Palestinian refugee camps would no longer be the living embodiment of the right of return, displaced Palestinians continue to wait to return to the homes where they lived as refugees.

Mondoweiss / ABC Flash Point News 2025.