Israël is expanding demolition of refugee houses from the West Bank

In the night, Israeli troops came in Jenin Refugee Camp on the occupied Western Jordan bank and began to order his 20,000 Palestinian inhabitants to leave their homes, said 66-year-old Jumaa Zawayda that he would refuse.

“My family all left, but I told them that I had to stay, when Israeli troops come to come over our house, I want to be there to prevent it from being damaged.”

What followed was three days of fear, with the constant sound of gunfire, explosions and drones that flew through the neighborhood, and the publishing of orders that Jumaa could not distinguish in the midst of the noise. Then water and electricity were cut off, his phone hit without a battery and Jumaa felt that he could no longer stay.

Now, three months later, Jumaa stands on a hill in Jenin City and overlooks the ghost city of the refugee camp where he and the other residents are still not prevented from returning by the Israeli army.

He tries to see if his house is one of the many who have been destroyed by the Israeli troops during their operations against Palestinian armed groups present in the camp. The sound of continuous explosions can be heard below.

“Some people have told me that they think our building has been demolished, but we don’t know,” says Jumaa, who is struggling to express himself through his emotion.

Nine’s father, who used to work in construction, stayed in a school for three months that was played for the displaced residents of the camp. He has now moved to accommodation for university students that he shares with his brother.

Before the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Israel was already working on a military campaign against armed groups on the West Bank.

A number of groups emerged in the densely populated urban refugee camps that were created for Palestinians who fled from their houses during the war or were driven out that followed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

The most important groups in Jenin Camp are affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Their hunters mainly attacked the Israeli armed forces, in addition to sporadic attacks on Israeli settlers on the West Bank.

The number of hunters is unknown, but local journalists estimate that there were around 150 hunters in Jenin Camp before the recent activities of both Israel and the Palestinian authority.

The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, launched his own performance in Jenin Camp in December 2024 and his troops did not retreat until the Israeli army started his most important operation there in January.

The Israeli Minister of Defense has called the camps ‘Nests of Terror’ and has performed its campaign in January against the armed groups that are active in it – enter and block a number of refugee camps on the northern western Jordoever who are home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.

It ordered residents to leave and started a wave of building demolition, while some residents had short opportunities to collect assets.

But with Israel almost completely blocking access to the camps and not publicly announcing which buildings they have destroyed, many Palestinians are distraught about whether they have a home to return to.

The Palestinian Refugee Office of the UN says that the best estimate is that Israel has at least 260 buildings with around 800 apartments connected during “Operation Iron Wall”, aimed at three refugee camps in the north of the West Bank: Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams. UNRWA estimates that 42,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the camps since January.

In February, the Israeli army announced that it had killed 60 hunters in his operations and had arrested 280 others. In the meantime, Palestinian health officials say that 100 people have been killed on the West Bank since the start of the January operation of Israel to today.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the army destroyed weapons and infrastructure “on an extensive scale” and said he had assigned the army to stay in the refugee camps for a year and to prevent residents from returning there.

The Israeli army told the BBC that the militias “exploit the civilian population as human shields and endanger them by planting explosive devices and hiding weapons”.

On 1 May, Israel Palestinian officials on the West Bank gave a new card of 106 buildings that said it would demolish in the refugee camps of Tulkarem and Nur Shams in the next 24 hours for “military purposes”. It said that residents could request a short window to return home to pick up essential assets.

Aid organizations say that the Israel campaign has caused the largest forced relocation of Palestinians on the West Bank in decades.

“What happens is unprecedented,” says Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA Westelijke Jordaan.

“In terms of the number of displaced persons and the level of destruction, we have never seen anything like this since 1967,” he added, referring to the year that Israel started his military occupation of the West Bank.

While filming an interview with the mayor of Jenin, the BBC witnessed the Israeli troops who held various Palestinians, including municipal employees who tried to enter the camp to erase a route to a nearby hospital. They were stored for three hours before they were released.

“There are major challenges, in terms of providing services to citizens. As everyone knows, the infrastructure in Jenin Camp has been completely demolished,” says Mayor Mohammad Jarrar.

“The goal of Israel is to try to make Jenin Camp completely unsuitable to live in, and I tell you that it has now become completely unlivable.”

The blockade of Israel of refugee camps in the West Bank has made information about what is almost impossible, says UNRWA’s Roland Friedrich, including the exact size of the demolition.

Jumaa is one of the some of the displaced Palestinians who have received a short visit by Israeli troops to pick up assets. He was able to just grab his UN -ID card and the family dog. Two months later, in March, Israel published a card of more than 90 buildings that identified it for demolition in Jenin. Jumaa’s home seemed to be among them.

The Israeli army told the BBC that it was necessary to demolish these buildings to improve the “freedom of movement” for its powers, but did not confirm whether Jumaa’s house had indeed been destroyed.

The BBC compared the March -breakdown card from Israel with a week later with satellite images from Jenin. We were able to confirm that, on March 27, at least 33 buildings on the list, including Jumaa, were destroyed. Satellite images reveal that there has been much further demolition since January, including the construction of new roads by Israeli troops where buildings were previously.

“Why did they demolish my house? I want to know. I want the Israeli army to give me justification. I had no ties with militants. I am a peaceful person,” says Jumaa.

“I worked for 50 years of work to build my house.”

Despite the learning that his house has been demolished, Jumaa is holding that he will return home.

“I will not leave the camp. If they don’t let me rebuild my house, I will set up a tent in place,” he said.

“Is it not enough that my family was displaced in 1948, now we have to deal with displacement again?”

Additional reporting by Lina Shaikhouni and Daniele Palumbo.