Paving military roads, Israel prepares permanent control of West Bank camps
A year after their expulsion from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps, refugees wait not only to return, but to reclaim the rights the camps preserved.
For the past year, 43-year-old Eman Amin has been living with her family in a rented apartment in Zababdeh, a town about 10 miles south of Jenin in the northern West Bank. Like tens of thousands of other Palestinians, she fled her home in the Jenin refugee camp last January, when Israel launched the military operation known officially as “Iron Wall” targeting the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps simultaneously.
Having expelled over 30,000 residents from their homes inside those camps with no indication of when, or if, they will be allowed to return, the ongoing operation constitutes the single largest act of forced displacement in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s occupation in 1967.
“We once treated the camp as a temporary station while waiting to return to our village of Zir’in,” Amin told +972 Magazine, referring to the Palestinian village north of Jenin that was occupied and destroyed by Zionist forces in 1948. “Now we find ourselves waiting to return to the waiting station itself.”
For Amin and many other Palestinians from the northern refugee camps, this uncertainty shapes daily life. “Every day feels like we’re stuck in limbo,” she added. “Our routines are all messed up, and even the simplest things — going to the market, sending the kids to school — are shadowed by not knowing if we’ll ever see our home again.”
According to UN estimates, more than 1,460 buildings across Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps have been destroyed or sustained severe or moderate damage since the start of the incursion. This includes over 52 percent of buildings in Jenin camp — the hardest hit of the three — signaling a level of destruction that extends beyond isolated targets and amounts to a sweeping assault on the camp’s urban fabric.
At the end of December, Israeli bulldozers leveled 25 buildings in the Nur Shams camp, containing around 100 housing units. Local committees submitted urgent petitions to Israel’s High Court, arguing that the demolitions were unnecessary and punitive. But the court rejectedthe petitions, echoing rulings issued in similar cases in Jenin earlier this year and effectively granting legal cover for continued destruction.
Israeli military bulldozers demolish a building in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem, in the West Bank, December 31, 2025. (Flash90)
“These are not random demolitions,” Faisal Salama, head of the Popular Committee in Tulkarem camp, told +972. “They are part of a broader plan to impose a new structural reality inside the camps.”
According to the Israeli army, the demolitions were carried out in part to ensure “operational freedom of action” for Israeli forces. And alongside this widespread destruction, the army has begun paving wide roads inside the camps, emphasizing a move toward permanent spatial restructuring.
These roads began to take shape in July, as heavy machinery carved wide access paths through densely built neighborhoods that were previously accessible only on foot. While Israeli authorities have not publicly released plans detailing the scope of the paving, residents and local officials say the routes are significantly wider than existing alleyways and appear designed to allow the unhindered movement of military vehicles.
“Once you open these roads, you change everything,” Salama said. “You turn the camp from a protected civilian space into an open terrain for military control. It’s not reconstruction — it’s erasure.”
A systematic emptying of the camps
In July, Lt. Gen. Michael R. Fenzel — currently serving as the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) — visited Nur Shams camp to assess the humanitarian impact of Israel’s ongoing operation. According to Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil, who accompanied Fenzel in Nur Shams with other PA and local officials, Fenzel informed him during the visit that Israel considered the military operation to have “ended” and that administrative responsibility for the camps would be transferred to the PA.
However, Kamil explained to +972, “what we were told did not match the reality inside the camp: There was no official Israeli announcement, no pullback of forces, and no easing of restrictions. There is no security need for Israel to stay inside the camps. This declaration [of the end of the operation] came as a response to political pressure, while the reality on the ground — demolitions, road paving, and military control — continues unchanged.” (The U.S. Embassy in Israel did not respond to +972’s request for comment about Fenzel’s remark.)
View of Israeli destruction in the Nur Shams refugee camp, near Tulkarem, June 25, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
According to Kamil and other Palestinian officials, Israeli authorities made it clear during the July visit that any transfer of administrative responsibility to the PA would be conditional on adopting an Israeli-designed structural plan, rather than the municipal plans previously recognized by local authorities that preserved the camps’ dense residential character and civilian infrastructure.
But the structural plan was only one part of a broader set of Israeli demands. According to Palestinian officials, Israeli authorities presented four additional conditions for withdrawal and the return of residents, which Kamil described as “disastrous.”
Residents would be subjected to comprehensive security screening, with Israeli forces retaining the authority to deny entry to anyone deemed a “security threat.” Moreover, residents would only be allowed to return after the Israeli army completed what it termed the “re-engineering” of the camps. Road construction, electricity, and water infrastructure would be fully coordinated with the military, while the PA would be required to establish checkpoints and police stations to prevent the entry of individuals Israel labels as “terrorists.”
For Salama, these conditions represent more than security measures: They amount to a systematic emptying of the camps. “Returning under Israeli conditions would reduce the camp’s population by nearly half,” he said of Tulkarem. “This is forced displacement by administrative means.”
Also among Israel’s conditions was the exclusion of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from any role in service provision or reconstruction, part of a wider campaign to curb the agency’s operations. Just days after the start of “Operation Iron Wall” last January, Israeli legislation came into effect that banned the agency from operating in what Israel defines as its “sovereign territory” and restricting visas for international staff in the West Bank. The Israeli government is now moving to seize UNRWA properties in East Jerusalem and revoke its staff’s UN immunities, in violation of international law.
The exclusion of UNRWA from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps, Salama added, would be particularly consequential. “UNRWA is not just a service provider: Its presence affirms that these camps exist because refugees have not been allowed to return to their homes. Removing UNRWA turns the camps into ordinary neighborhoods under PA control, and that effectively closes the refugee file.”
Israeli police raid UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, December 8, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Resisting permanent erasure
In late November, Israeli forces issued orders to demolish at least a dozen homes and partially dismantle others in Jenin camp. Ghadeer Al-Khalifa, a 54-year-old woman displaced from the camp’s eastern neighborhood, recalled being told she had just one hour to retrieve her belongings along a single permitted route through the camp before her home would be destroyed.
“My house is at the far end,” she told +972. “I couldn’t reach it. I came back with nothing.”
Stories like hers are common. Israel only allows displaced families to enter the camps under highly controlled conditions. The Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority, which serves as the liaison between the PA and the Israeli authorities, may be informed, but it holds no decision-making power; its role is largely to pass on messages.
Access is typically granted for a limited time window under continuous military supervision. Large items, furniture, or heavy equipment are usually prohibited, and residents describe soldiers rushing them through checkpoints, denying requests to retrieve furniture, documents, or medication, and threatening arrest if they linger too long.
“It feels like saying goodbye without knowing if you will ever return,” Al-Khalifa said.
When Israel began its incursion last January, many Palestinians from the camps initially sought refuge in temporary shelters like schools and mosques, but those options quickly proved unsustainable. As their displacement became prolonged, families turned to the private rental market, only to encounter soaring prices. In cities like Jenin and Tulkarem, rents have doubled or tripled in some areas, driven by sudden demand and limited supply.
A Palestinian woman passes by Israeli soldiers after retrieving belongings from her home in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem, December 17, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
In mid-October, displaced residents from Jenin camp staged sit-ins near housing complexes close to the Arab American University, protesting rent hikes and eviction threats. “We are paying more than we can afford, and yet we are still not allowed to return to our homes,” said Mohammad Abu Saleh, one of the organizers of the Jenin sit-ins.
Protests have continued elsewhere. In early December, hundreds of displaced residentsgathered at the entrance to the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps to demand access to their homes and oppose Israel’s ongoing demolition and restructuring campaign. Local committee members emphasized that these actions were part of a broader effort by residents across the northern West Bank to resist permanent erasure of their camps.
“These protests are not just about buildings; they are about our lives and our future,” said one of the protesters. “After a year of displacement, we are still waiting for justice and the chance to return.”
According to UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler, the agency has distributed cash to try to help displaced residents to pay rent and meet their daily needs, as well as giving out food vouchers together with the World Food Programme. But despite this support, the crisis persists, with official authorities unable to cover the costs of even essential services such as water, electricity, and gas. All the while, displaced families continue to face pressure from property owners, most of whom are private investors, to pay rent or risk eviction.
Disrupting health care and education
Displacement has placed an immense and sustained burden on Palestinian families’ access to both education and health care. More than 12,000 children are displaced from the camps. With the 10 UNRWA schools inside the camps closed, some have been able to re-enroll in government schools or participate in remote learning programs, including those established by UNRWA. But many others have been forced to forgo their education entirely.
Even for those fortunate enough to continue attending classes, their education has still been severely disrupted. Al-Khalifa, from Jenin camp, recounted how her daughter had to be transferred to different schools repeatedly as their family was forced to relocate three times since the start of the military operation. Each move required enrolling her children in schools that were geographically accessible, impacting her daughter’s academic progress.
Palestinians protest their displacement from their homes in the Nur Shams refugee camp, in Tulkarem, December 15, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
Healthcare access has deteriorated even more sharply. UNRWA clinics inside the camps have ceased operations, and displaced residents must go to hospitals and clinics in nearby cities — a process often complicated by transportation costs and limited appointment availability. Others are forced to rely on irregular mobile medical teams, whose visits are unpredictable and insufficient to meet the scale of need.
“For patients with disabilities, every missed appointment matters,” Nahaya Al-Jundi, 54, head of the Nur Shams Association for the Disabled, told +972. She added that interruptions in treatment have already led to worsening health outcomes, particularly among the elderly, women, and children.
Al-Jundi herself was besieged in her home at the start of Israel’s incursion into Nur Shams, and forced by Israeli soldiers to leave the camp with her husband and teenage daughter. When she was allowed to return in March to retrieve medical equipment, she told +972 that she was shocked by the scale of destruction. “Soldiers had destroyed everything, from medical devices and wheelchairs to furniture and essential supplies. There was nothing left to salvage.”
She added that the loss of equipment and disruption of services has left many residents without the care they desperately need, creating ongoing risks for those with chronic conditions and disabilities, and deepening the humanitarian crisis in the camp.
Six months after a U.S.-led visit heralded a supposed end to the operation, the Israeli military has not withdrawn from any northern West Bank camp. Instead, displaced residents face an uncertain future. And the northern camps may just be the first: Earlier this month, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the army to prepare operational plans to occupy other refugee camps across the West Bank.
As plans advance to engineer a new reality in which refugee camps are stripped of their political meaning, as spaces that once embodied both refuge and resistance, Palestinians remain suspended between displacement and return — waiting not only to go home, but to reclaim the rights those camps were created to preserve.
In response to +972’s inquiry, an Israeli army spokesperson stated that its operation in the refugee camps “was based on the understanding that terrorists exploit the area and the densely built environment of the camps, which limits the IDF’s freedom of action … These days, the forces continue to operate to dismantle bomb-making laboratories and weapons installations that were set up inside houses in civilian environments.
“As part of the operation, the IDF is working to shape and stabilize the area,” the statement continued. “An integral part of this effort is the breaching of routes within the camps, which necessitated the demolition of rows of buildings. The decision to demolish these buildings was made out of a clear and necessary operational need, and only after alternative options for achieving the same military advantage were examined. At this stage, the security need for the IDF to continue its presence in the refugee camps is fully met.”