Israeli demolitions continue in West Bank camps

As tensions escalate between Iran and Israel, the Israeli army has intensified its operations in the West Bank, accelerating the destruction of Palestinian refugee camps, according to Radio France Internationale on June 20th. 

Providing shelter after the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes following the creation of the State of Israel, these camps were originally intended as temporary shelters.

On June 17th, Israel’s Supreme Court authorised the demolition of 90 buildings in Jenin camp, one of the largest and most historically significant camps in the West Bank.

Hatem, who has lived in Jenin for over forty years, now watches from a rooftop bordering the camp as Israeli bulldozers level what remains of his home: “I started crying when I saw my house from here,” he recounts. “I watch the bulldozers destroying everything — it’s devastating, devastating! Nothing is left but ruins. I can’t believe it. Even as I speak to you, it feels like my soul isn’t here.”

He wishes to return to Jenin, but the army has barred him from doing so. He said: “I tried to go three times, and three times the army shot at me.”

Aoutef, another resident forcibly displaced from the camp, fears that the systematic erasure of refugee camps is an attempt to erase Palestinian identity itself. “They want to make everything connected to refugees disappear — to turn the camp into just another Jenin neighbourhood. But we are displaced everywhere. It’s true the camps were meant to be temporary, and one day, God willing, we’ll return home.”

For Aoutef, the destruction of the camp is not just about physical structures: it represents the loss of history, refugee status, and the internationally recognised right to return to one’s land. 

Radio France Internationale, Maghrebi.org