NUR SHAMS, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of Palestinian families fled on Monday from the Nur Shams refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank, as Israel pushed on with a sweeping military operation.
“We hear explosions and bombings as well as bulldozers. It’s a tragedy. They are doing here what they did in Gaza,” said Ahmed Ezza, a resident.
Ahmed Abu Zahra, another resident of the camp which is on the outskirts of Tulkarem, said he was forced to leave his home.
“The (Israeli) army came and we were forced to leave after they started destroying our homes.”
Three Palestinians, including two women and a young man, were killed on Sunday in Nur Shams, the health ministry in the territory said.
Israel said its military police had opened an investigation into the death of one of them, a woman who was eight months pregnant.
It said on Saturday it had launched an operation in Nur Shams, part of a much larger campaign that began in January in Tulkarem and Jenin, which it said had “targeted several terrorists.”
In the streets of Nur Shams camp, under a light rain, residents were fleeing.
An AFP photographer saw dozens of families hastily leaving the camp, while bulldozers carried out large-scale demolitions amid gunfire and explosions.
According to Murad Alyan, from the camp’s popular committee, “more than half of the 13,000 inhabitants have fled out of fear for their lives.”
Since January 21, the Israeli military has been conducting a major operation in the “triangle” of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem, where half a million Palestinians live.
Israel says it is targeting “terrorist infrastructure.”
Jenin in particular is a bastion of armed Palestinian militant groups.
“What we are living through is without precedent,” Ahmad Al-Assaad, the governor of Tubas, told AFP.
The Israeli operations “today did not target fighters, but civilians, women and children, and they blew houses to pressure residents into leaving.”
According to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Israel was pursuing an “all-our war on the Palestinian people.”
“Since the ceasefire began in Gaza, the West Bank has been on fire,” it said in a post on X, referring to the truce agreement that halted the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on January 19.
“The objective of these operations is not security-related, but political,” said Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Tulkarem.
“They destroy everything,” he said of the Israeli military. “They are trying to change the demographics of the region.”
Israel insists that its operations are targeted at Palestinians suspected of preparing attacks against Israeli citizens.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of applying “the same policy of destruction” in the West Bank as in Gaza.
Violence has exploded in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
At least 887 Palestinians, including militants, have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 32 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
Dozens of Palestinian families flee Israeli operation in West Bank
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Dozens of Palestinian families flee Israeli operation in West Bank
- The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of applying “the same policy of destruction” in the West Bank as in Gaza
Syrian army declares Daesh-linked camp ‘closed security zone’
- Al-Hol is the largest camp for suspected Daesh relatives
- A military source said the army’s measure aimed to control security around the camp
DAMASCUS: Syria’s army announced Friday that a camp housing suspected relatives of Daesh group fighters was closed to the public, a measure a military source said was meant to bolster security around the facility.
Earlier this month, the army entered the vast Al-Hol camp after the withdrawal of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In a statement Friday, it said the area was a “closed security zone.”
Located in a desert region of Hasakah province, Al-Hol is the largest camp for suspected Daesh relatives and is home to some 24,000 people, mostly women and children, including 6,200 foreigners.
A military source told AFP the army’s measure aimed to control security around the camp and maintain order within it.
Some camp residents fled during the “security vacuum” between when the SDF withdrew and the army took control, two former employees of organizations working at the site told AFP last week.
In recent days, new reports emerged of attempts to flee the camp.
In the latest issue of its official Al-Naba publication — translated by the SITE monitoring group — Daesh called on supporters to free women held captive in Al-Hol.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery, but backed by a US-led coalition, the Kurdish-led SDF ultimately defeated the militants in Syria five years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected militants and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
When the Syrian army took control of the camp, most humanitarian organizations withdrew, and aid has only been trickling in since.
The Save the Children charity warned on Friday that the humanitarian situation in the camp was “rapidly deteriorating as food, water and medicines run dangerously low.”
After Syrian government forces advanced against Kurdish forces, Washington said it would transfer 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, to Iraq.
The transfer is still underway.
