Violent Israeli raids forcibly displace 26,000 Palestinians in West Bank

Thousands of Palestinians have been displaced and dozens of homes have been demolished after more than two weeks of deadly Israeli siege and raids in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, including Jenin refugee camp.

“The Israeli army says they have launched a ‘counterterrorism’ operation to combat armed Palestinian fighters. But if you look at what is going on, you have 26,000 Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced, forced to leave their homes,” said Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan.

“The Israeli army has detonated homes in Jenin, Tulkarem and now Nablus. The army says some of these homes were used for military infrastructure but did not provide any sort of evidence to prove those claims.

“The Israeli army is levelling residential blocks, mirroring essentially what they have been doing in Gaza, detonating homes and killing many Palestinians,” Salhut said.

The Israeli military has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and killed more than 47,000 people, including at least 25,000 children and women, although authorities in Gaza updated the death toll to 61,709 earlier this week to account for the 14,222 people missing and presumed dead.

Israeli forces have killed more than 70 people, including 10 children, in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says. At least 38 people have been killed in Jenin alone, according to the ministry’s tally released on Monday.

“Since Gaza ceasefire was announced on January 19 it [Israel] has conducted large scale operations across West Bank, saying it was also one of the goals of the war to combat armed Palestinians. But Palestinians say it’s the civilians who are facing the brunt of Israeli army incursions,” the Al Jazeera correspondent said.

“The Army has put up so many additional checkpoints throughout the territory that it has become nearly impossible for Palestinians to move around, they cannot go to school, they cannot go to work, they cannot go to hospital.”

In a new report, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said that the healthcare system in the occupied West Bank has been in “a state of perpetual emergency” since October 2023.

“A dramatic escalation in violence, marked by prolonged Israeli military incursions and stricter movement restrictions … have severely hindered access to essential services, particularly healthcare, exacerbating already dire living conditions for many Palestinians,” it said.

The report examined “the attacks and the obstructions of healthcare in a context of, what has been described by the ICJ (International Criminal Court) as segregation and apartheid”. It revealed “a pattern of systematic interference by Israeli forces and settlers in emergency healthcare delivery”.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023.