Amid the outrageous threats from Donald Trump about the future of Gaza, the back and forth regarding the ceasefire and captives-for-prisoners swap deal, and the reimposition of the blockade on the enclave, Israel has quietly continued its systematic ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.
According to a report published by the United Nations on February 10, 2025, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their residential areas in Palestinian refugee camps located in the northern occupied West Bank, since Israel launched its “Iron Wall” operation on January 21. This number has likely risen since then.
The operation started in the Jenin refugee camp, then expanded to Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and Al-Far’a camps, resulting in the killing of dozens of Palestinians and the demolition of dozens of houses.
Wide roadways have reportedly been cleared within the camps, which was considered as a deliberate attempt by Israel to transform the structure of refugee camps in the northern West Bank and push out more people.
Analysts suggest that such actions constitute an aspect of Israel’s wider plan to liquidate the Palestinian right of return. The campaign in the West Bank is happening while the US and Israel call for the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza to other countries.
Although Arab countries rejected these plans, media reports surfaced on Friday, March 14, that the US and Israel discussed with three East African governments the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to their countries Sudan, Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemned Israel’s displacement campaign in the occupied West Bank, calling it an “ethnic cleansing”.
Albanese also criticized media bias and international inaction to stop the crime and called for investigations to be conducted, because the campaign “has helped to create an environment conducive to genocide being carried out.”
The UN official further clarified that the recent campaign in the West Bank is a continuation of what has been happening against Palestinians since the Nakba.
“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced. More than 350,000 were displaced in 1967, and Israel destroyed everything they left behind, preventing their return.”
Albanese slammed the Arab countries for their “shocking” limited ability to do anything that may end the ordeal of the Palestinian people. She urged these countries to unify their voice in defense of the Palestinians, rather than just talking about rebuilding Gaza, even as “genocide is continuing”.
Israel’s West Bank displacement campaign is also perceived as a complementary process of Israel’s efforts to dismantle the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which aim at eliminating the Palestinian right of return.
Surge in IOF and settler violence across the West Bank and East Jerusalem
On Sunday, March 16, Israel’s large-scale offensive on Jenin city and its refugee camp entered its 55th consecutive day. At least 120 houses were reportedly destroyed in the camp so far, with 20,000 residents being forcibly displaced.
While the displacement, demolition of houses and infrastructure have been concentrated in the northern areas of the West Bank, the remaining areas of the occupied territory have not been immune to the surge in daily violence practiced by the IOF and Israeli settlers.
In the central occupied West Bank, the IOF carried out raids in the villages of Nabi Saleh and Deir Ibzi’ in Ramallah also on Sunday, while they continued razing large areas of Palestinian land in Salfit for the fourth day in a row.
A Palestinian anti-colonization activist told the Palestine News and Information Agency WAFA, that the land clearing is part of Israeli efforts to create a new road leading to a colonial outpost established on land belonging to the nearby village of Farkha.
North of Jerusalem, near Qalandia checkpoint, a 33-year-old Palestinian man was injured in the abdomen by the IOF.
The same day saw an attack by a group of Israeli settlers escorted by IOF soldiers against Palestinian citizens in the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Similar violent incidents took place in the city of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank after the IOF closed the military checkpoint at the entrance to Al-Shuhada Street in the city center on Sunday, leaving residents and schoolchildren stranded and unable to reach their homes.
Meanwhile, different parts of the city including Wadi al-Hussein to the east, Masafer Yatta to the south and Hebron’s central old city have been subjected to settler attacks for two days respectively.
