Fayha Shalash
The New Arab / April 9, 2025
The refugee camp has always been a visible wound in the lives of Palestinians, revealing their tragedy to the world, even if everyone else forgot.
Since the beginning of its military attack on the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps in the northern occupied West Bank, Israel has sought to completely change the camps’ soul and shape after forcing their Palestinian residents to evacuate.
These acts by Israel include bombing and destroying hundreds of homes or severely damaging hundreds more, along with constructing wider roads that differ from the original structure of the Palestinian camps, previously with narrow alleys and closely packed houses.
The issue is not merely an alteration in the physical appearance of the camp for Palestinians, as it reminds people daily of the 1948 Nakba, but rather, it is a moral issue related to the internationally-recognised refugee status that is passed on to future generations of Palestinians until a just solution is made.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement on 6 March that these large-scale demolitions in the camps represent a disturbing new pattern, having an unprecedented impact on Palestinian refugees and seeking to permanently alter the character of the camps within the northern parts of the occupied West Bank.
The UN agency further noted that the demolitions are taking place within the context of the so-called “Iron Wall” operation, which Israeli security forces have been conducting since 21 January. This Israeli military assault is the longest and most destructive since the Second Intifada and resulted in the largest displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the 1967 war, with some 40,000 people forced to leave their homes.
Among the areas under attack are the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps which were emptied of their residents, in addition to widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, the UNRWA statement noted.
Obliterating refugee camps
The refugee camp has always been a visible wound in the lives of Palestinians, revealing their tragedy to the world, even if everyone else forgot. The harsh and difficult life amidst its narrow alleys, deteriorating services, and overcrowded homes is a story of long patience awaiting a just solution.
Israel seeks to eliminate this. A recent Israeli government plan reported by media outlets, citing the Israeli military, made no secret of its goal to obliterate the refugee status for Palestinians. The military stated that it seeks to implement the plan across at least 18 camps in the occupied West Bank, but at the appropriate time.
Hiba al-Haj Saleh, an activist in Jenin camp who, like all its residents, was displaced, told The New Arab that Israel has been destroying and reshaping the camp’s features for more than two months.
This policy, according to her, systematically seeks to obliterate Palestinian identity and the right of return under the pretext of pursuing armed resistance cells.
“Evacuating Jenin camp of its residents through forced displacement, followed by daily burning and demolishing homes, opening new roads, and widening secondary roads, are means of transforming the camp into a neighbourhood and a municipal area, completely obliterating the refugee issue,” the activist asserted.
“Changing the camp’s features and shape and establishing Israeli military bases make it clear to camp residents that the Israelis will be working there for a long time and that their dream of returning, even to their temporary homes, is extremely remote, all for the sake of seizing the right of return,” she argued.
“Israel has many policies aimed at stifling refugees and eliminating their narrative, including reducing UNRWA services inside the camps, daily raids for years, and restrictions in every way in an effort to end them,” Saleh added.
Meanwhile, for more than two months since the start of the Israeli military operation, Tulkarm camp has been subjected to a massive campaign of house demolitions.
Israel has also stated that it is proceeding with the construction of wide roads within the camp, eliminating residential areas through demolition and explosions, and changing the overall appearance of the camp, similar to what it is doing in Jenin camp after completely evacuating the residents.
Faisal Salama, head of the Popular Committee for Services in Tulkarm, noted to TNA that the camp’s landscape has already begun to change. Its homes are either completely or partially destroyed, its streets are impassable, and all infrastructure services are lacking.
Discussing Israel’s efforts to abolish the Palestinian refugee status, he said the camp continues to represent a refugee issue, a national identity, and the symbolism of refuge, migration, and the 1948 Nakba as a result of massacres and crimes perpetrated by Zionist forces at the time.
“Re-expelling residents at gunpoint, uprooting the camp’s inhabitants, emptying them of their homes, demolishing houses, opening and paving roads, carrying out military expansions, demolishing blocks and residential units to change the camp’s features and architectural structure, reducing the population, and widening the streets to facilitate the passage of Israeli military vehicles are all measures aimed at ending the camp’s existence and eliminating and ending the refugee issue.”
“The goal behind all these practices on the ground is to erase the right of return and abolish the role of UNRWA. The ongoing work is to integrate or resettle camp residents into neighbourhoods in cities and villages,” Salama said.
Repeated attempts
Director of Lajee Centre for Palestinian Refugee Affairs in Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem, Mohammed al-Azzeh, said to TNA that Israeli colonialism worked hard to obliterate the Palestinian refugee status, which is one of the fundamental pillars of the Palestinian cause and inalienable internationally-recognised right of return, given that the majority of Palestinians are refugees.
One of Israel’s most prominent tools to erase collective memory, and their political and historical symbolism, is to alter the refugee camps’ appearances.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, the idea of improving the infrastructure in some camps was promoted as a means of eliminating the camp’s character, transforming it into a neighbourhood, and attempting to obliterate its political and symbolic character,” noted Al-Azzeh.
According to him, history is repeating itself with a new, overt targeting of the camps by the extremist Israeli government, aiming to discredit them as a political space representing the right of return.
He added that the Israeli government is using methods aimed at suppressing resistance, terrorising families, pushing residents to emigrate, and demonising the camps.
“Israel targeted symbolic institutions, such as cultural sites within the camps… It erased murals commemorating the return of the Palestinian people, prisoners, and martyrs…. It criminalised UNRWA, the sole witness to the Nakba, even before the war significantly reduced its services,” he said.
Nevertheless, and despite the massive challenges, Al-Azzeh asserts that Israel’s attempt to erase Palestinians in the occupied West Bank will not succeed.
Fayha’ Shalash is a journalist from Ramallah in the West Bank
