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An Israeli military operation has displaced 40,000 people from refugee camps, but restrictions on humanitarian access are complicating the response.
Meals are delivered to Arab American University in the occupied West Bank village of Talfit on March 13. At right is Mohamed Malri, 14, who was shot in the stomach during a military operation in December. (Photos by Heidi Levine/For The Washington Post)
By Claire Parker
and
Heidi Levine
JENIN, West Bank — A months-long Israeli military operation has displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians in the northern West Bank, a crisis that local authorities say shows no signs of abating as humanitarian groups, hamstrung by Israeli restrictions and funding challenges, struggle to respond.
Israel launched the operation in January, deploying troops, tanks and armored bulldozers under the stated goal of combating terrorism. They began in the Jenin refugee camp, a symbol of armed Palestinian resistance against Israel’s occupation, tearing up roads, demolishing homes and preventing residents from coming back. By that point, the dozens of militants who had holed up there earlier had largely fled or been captured or killed.
The operation has resulted in the forced displacement of more than 40,000 people from the refugee camps and surrounding communities in Jenin and Tulkarm, according to the United Nations. Israeli forces have since demolished or severely damaged hundreds of houses and residential units, also according to the U.N., local authorities, videos and testimony from residents.
The Israeli military said it was working to “prevent terrorists from re-establishing themselves in the area” by “opening routes, including in the Jenin camp, which requires the demolition of several buildings.”
The scale of the displacement now is unprecedented since the start of Israel’s occupation in 1967, according to Roland Friedrich, the West Bank director of UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. About a third of Palestinians living in the West Bank — or roughly 900,000 people — are formally registered as refugees, after their families fled or were pushed from their homes during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel.
Local authorities have put thousands of the most vulnerable residents up in temporary shelters and, along with donors and international organizations, have provided emergency assistance. But Israeli restrictions, insecurity and funding shortfalls are hampering their ability to provide relief to the newly homeless — and funding for shelters may soon run out.
“This is considered an abnormal crisis,” said Mohammad Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp’s popular services committee. “This is a new catastrophe for Jenin camp.”
‘Beyond our capabilities’
Several days into the operation, Areen Alaqmeh, 29, heard an Israeli drone hovering above her family’s house in the camp. “The drone was telling us, ‘You have from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to leave. If you don’t leave, we will blow up the house.’”
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So Alaqmeh and her family took the route indicated by the Israel Defense Forces, under fire and on roads “full of holes,” she said, adding that they didn’t have time to gather their belongings. All told, about 21,000 people were forced to evacuate the Jenin camp, according to local authorities — leaving it empty.
“The IDF has allowed locals wishing to distance themselves from combat zones to leave safely,” the IDF press desk said in a statement. “The evacuation takes place through special crossings secured by the forces.”
Alaqmeh soon sought refuge in a local center for the blind, repurposed as a shelter for the displaced. About two dozen families there are sleeping on twin beds crowded together and cooking communally in a bare-bones kitchen. At the beginning, local charities and donors brought the families clothes, blankets, mattresses and other essential supplies, women at the shelter said. But as their ranks swelled and time passed, the aid dwindled.
Several weeks into their displacement, Alaqmeh and some female relatives tried to return home to retrieve clothing. An Israeli sniper shot at the group five times, she said. They managed to escape unscathed and seek shelter in an abandoned building for seven hours, until an ambulance was able to come get them.
In separate incidents, two women were shot in the legs when they attempted to enter the camp, according to Mahmoud al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jenin.
Most of the displaced haven’t dared take the risk. Instead, they’re surviving on handouts, largely from local institutions and donors. The Jenin camp is one of the poorest parts of the West Bank; most people were already unemployed and below the poverty line, according to local officials. Municipalities and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah are also facing severe financial constraints that leave them ill-equipped to manage the emergency.
“What’s happening now, it’s beyond our capabilities,” Jenin Mayor Mohammad Jarrar said.
Instead, Sabbagh’s camp services committee is steering the response. In his makeshift office in downtown Jenin, women toting small children lined up to receive vouchers for milk on a recent afternoon. The committee and World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based nonprofit, together distribute about 9,000 meals daily, Sabbagh said — reaching less than half of the displaced, who have scattered throughout the city of Jenin and the surrounding countryside.
With money raised from civil society and its own emergency fund, the committee rented empty dorm rooms at the nearby Arab American University for 450 of the neediest families, at a cost of up to $40,000 per month. Demand is growing: Displaced families who initially rented apartments have blown through their savings, while those who bunked with relatives have overstayed their welcome.
But there’s no more room at the university shelter and funds are low. Donations from local businessmen will cover the rent for some dormitories through June; for others, the money could run out within days, according to Jarrar. And families will soon have to vacate the center for the blind, he added.
Without swift intervention, Sabbagh worries, “maybe those people will end up in the streets.”
Aid groups under strain
A handful of international organizations have provided food parcels, hygiene kits, water trucking and other assistance to the recently displaced. Usually, though, a crisis of this scale would prompt a more robust and coordinated response, aid workers say. But a confluence of factors have complicated the ability of international organizations to help.
UNRWA, founded in 1949 to assist Palestinian refugees, is typically the port of first call for this population. The agency has provided emergency cash payments to thousands of displaced families, set up psychological support hotlines, and opened mobile clinics and emergency health centers for those who had relied on UNRWA clinics in the camps.
But it is grappling with new Israeli laws aimed at undermining its work. One law prohibits contact between Israeli officials and UNRWA employees, making it difficult to reach the Israeli military when soldiers break into UNRWA facilities in the West Bank, Friedrich said. Staffers continue to be harassed by soldiers at checkpoints, he added.
It is also strapped for cash. And the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. foreign assistance have forced the U.N. and other agencies to make tough choices about where their money goes, Friedrich said. For many donors, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has overshadowed the spiraling crisis in the West Bank.
“Our capacities and our resources have been shrunk to the point where it’s almost that we have to make a decision between Gaza and the West Bank, which is against our humanitarian principles,” said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead for the occupied Palestinian territories at Oxfam International.
Beyond financial resources, humanitarians must contend with access restrictions posed by an increased number of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, aggression by soldiers and settlers, and safety concerns about military operations and damage to humanitarian facilities, according to interviews with aid workers and a report produced by a coalition of nonprofits in February.
The IDF said the added checkpoints were necessary and “effective” to “ensure the safe movement” of Israelis in the West Bank. It also said that when soldiers “do not adhere to IDF orders, the events are thoroughly investigated, and disciplinary action is taken as needed.”
Waiting to return
Many Palestinian families are coming to terms with the idea they may never return home.
Umm Khaled, 75, sat in the Arab American University dorm room she now shares with her grandson on a recent evening, recalling the multistory house in the Jenin camp she and her husband began building half a century ago.
“I carried the cement on my shoulders,” she said. “We put all our savings into the house.”
She raised her 10 children there, and the family stayed and grew, living through decades of military occupation. Her grandson, Nibal Safouri, 25, had recently bought the ground-floor apartment from his uncle, in the hopes of marrying and starting a family.
In videos Safouri shared with The Washington Post, taken by neighbors and a local journalist, the site where their house once stood is no more than a patch of freshly packed dirt, after their building was razed by IDF bulldozers. Umm Khaled couldn’t bring herself to look at the footage.
The IDF said the decision to demolish houses “is based on operational necessity and was made thoughtfully after considering other alternatives.”
Since the start of the operation, Israeli forces have demolished 200 residential buildings in the Jenin refugee camp, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported last week, citing security sources. This month, Israel issued demolition orders for about 90 buildings, which Jarrar said will render 300 families homeless. Defense Minister Israel Katz said in February that troops may remain in the camps for up to a year.
“We are very resilient. But for how long can we survive and handle it?” Jarrar said, adding that he feared the internal displacement would be a prelude to large-scale emigration.
Streets have been turned into impassable piles of smashed concrete and debris; elsewhere, the IDF leveled buildings to clear wide avenues for tanks, which in February were deployed to the West Bank for the first time in decades. Massive earth mounds constructed by Israeli soldiers block the camp’s entrances.
Still, many vow to return. With tears in her eyes, Umm Khaled recalled the garden she had tended behind her home, filled with orange and olive trees.
“My house was really beautiful. For my sons, my grandsons, it was our heaven,” she said. “I keep telling them I did my duty, I built the house — now it’s your turn. You will rebuild it.”
Middle East conflict
Israel’s military launched a large-scale bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip on 18 March, breaking the fragile ceasefire with Hamas that had been in place since late January. Follow live updates on the ceasefire and the hostages remaining in Gaza.
The Israel-Gaza war: On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking civilian hostages. Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948. In July 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack Hamas has blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah: In late 2024, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire deal, bringing a tenuous halt to more than a year of hostilities that included an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Israel’s airstrikes into Lebanon had been intense and deadly, killing over 1,400 people including Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader. The Israel-Lebanon border has a history of violence that dates back to Israel’s founding.
Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions.” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave.
U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians, including former President Joe Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons, funds aid packages, and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ ceasefire resolutions.
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