Tens of thousands of Palestinians forced to flee West Bank as Israeli military operation deepens
Largest displacement in West Bank since 1967 Arab-Israeli war, humanitarian officials say
By car and on foot, through muddy olive groves and sniper 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 Arab-Israeli war.
After announcing a widespread crackdown against West Bank militants 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 the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
But unlike past operations, Israeli forces then pushed deeper and more forcefully into several other nearby towns, including Tulkarm, 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, as Palestinians call it, using the Arabic word for "catastrophe," 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.
'This is unprecedented': UN official
Humanitarian officials say they haven't seen such displacement in the West Bank since the war in 1967, when Israel took over 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 UNRWA, 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, U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal 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, head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at Britain'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.
7 minutes to leave home
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 with The Associated Press 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 five-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.
When the invasion started on Feb. 2, Israeli bulldozers ruptured underground pipes. Taps ran dry. Sewage gushed. Internet service was shut off. Schools closed. Food supplies dwindled. Explosions echoed.
The Israeli army has described its ongoing campaign as a crucial counterterrorism effort to prevent attacks like Oct. 7, and said steps were taken to mitigate the impact on civilians.
A chilling return
The first thing Doha Abu Dgheish noticed about her family's five-storey home 10 days after Israeli troops forced them to leave, she said, was the smell.
Venturing inside as Israeli troops withdrew from Far'a camp, she found rotten food and toilets piled with excrement. Pet parakeets had vanished from their cages. Pages of the Qur'an had been defaced with graphic drawings. Israeli forces had apparently used explosives to blow every door off its hinges, even though none had been locked.
Rama, her 11-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, screamed upon finding her doll's skirt torn and its face covered with more graphic drawings.
Associated Press journalists visited the Abu Dgheish home on Feb. 12, hours after their return.
Nearly two dozen Palestinians interviewed across the four West Bank refugee camps this month described army units taking over civilian homes to use as a dormitories, storerooms or lookout points. The Abu Dgheish family accused Israeli soldiers of vandalizing their home, as did multiple families in Far'a.
The Israeli army blamed militants for embedding themselves in civilian infrastructure. Soldiers may be "required to operate from civilian homes for varying periods," it said, adding that the destruction of civilian property was a violation of the military's rules and does not conform to its values.
It said "any exceptional incidents that raise concerns regarding a deviation from these orders" are "thoroughly addressed," without elaborating.
For Abu Dgheish, the mess was emblematic of the emotional whiplash of their return. No one knows when they'll have to flee again.
"It's like they want us to feel that we're never safe," she said. "That we have no control."