The article below was first published on August 31, 2025, by Zeteo, an online publication founded by award-winning journalist Mehdi Hasan, according to its website.
It documents the forced displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank by Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli military is not permitting those displaced to return to their homes more than six months since they were forced to flee on the pain of death.
As World-Outlook noted in introducing the recent article West Bank: Israeli Soldiers ‘Do Whatever They Want’, “Combined with horrific attacks by right-wing settlers, the IDF assaults have resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,000 [West Bank] Palestinians, while injuring more than 7,000, over the last two years. Palestinians in the West Bank have also been effectively banned from cultivating their land.
“This onslaught in the West Bank is often overshadowed by most media in the United States and other countries by the genocidal war Israel has been relentlessly carrying out in the Gaza Strip ever since the grotesque Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.”
In this light, the article below helps provide a more complete picture of the Netanyahu’s government’s criminal policies against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and within Israel proper.
World-Outlook is publishing the article that follows for the information of our readers. The headline, subhead, photo, and text below are from the original. The endnote is by World-Outlook.
— World-Outlook editors
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‘Nakba All Over Again’: West Bank Palestinians Still Displaced More Than 6 Months After Israel Forced Them to Flee
The Israeli military’s operation in Jenin, Tulkarm, and other cities, have displaced more than 40,000 people – the largest mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank in decades.
Aug 31, 2025
Occupied West Bank – “Get down. If the Israelis see you trying to enter the camp, they will shoot at you,” a Jenin resident told me as Palestinian journalist Ahmad al-Bazz and I walked toward the entrance of Jenin Camp, which until February housed 25,000 Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Nakba. The ‘they’ she was referring to where the Israeli snipers positioned inside the camp to keep Palestinians from entering.
In January, the Israeli military began a new and devastating military campaign in the West Bank, which it labeled “Operation Iron Wall.” At first, working with the Palestinian Authority and, then, on its own, the Israeli military invaded village after village in the occupied West Bank, killed dozens, instituted lockdowns, and launched an airstrike on Jenin Camp.
Israel’s stated goal of the operation is to root out elements of armed Palestinian resistance from the West Bank, but what has resulted is the largest mass displacement of Palestinians outside of Gaza since the Naksa[1] during the 1967 Six-Day War – more than 40,000 have been forced from their homes in the West Bank this year. And like in Gaza, there appears to be no prospect that those displaced will ever be allowed to return to their homes.
It’s “the Nakba all over again,” one Jenin resident told me.
Most fled from Jenin and Tulkarm, where the refugee camps, once strongholds for Palestinian resistance, have come under Israeli military control for the first time since the second Intifada. Those who could left for their extended family’s homes in villages throughout the West Bank, while those who didn’t have anywhere to flee to were forced to stay in makeshift shelters in Jenin and Tulkarm. In the latter, dozens of families slept on the floor of a wedding hall and youth sports center.
The orders to leave the camps in Jenin and Tulkarm came from the Israeli military and were enforced in a matter of hours. After Israel’s initial invasion of the two camps, Israeli forces went house to house and told residents to flee. Many whom I spoke with recounted how they were held at gunpoint and told that if they chose to stay, they would be killed. “It all happened so fast,” Fakhria Ghbairiga, a 58-year-old displaced resident from Jenin, told me. “People didn’t know where to go; the army would take them out around midnight,” she added.
Residents who fled did so with only the clothes they were wearing and whatever they could carry. They hoped they would be able to return as soon as the fighting between armed Palestinian factions and the Israeli military was over. But more than six months later, the camps remain closed. “[N]ow no one knows what will happen,” said Kamal Damaj, 49, a coordinator with the Popular Services Committees.
Only Israeli forces are allowed in and out of Jenin Camp, and day by day, they demolish residents’ homes and host military exercises.
NOTES
[1] Below is a comparison between the Arabic terms Nakba and Naksa, for the information of our readers:
| Nakba: “Catastrophe” or “Disaster” — 1948 | Naksa: “Setback” or “Relapse” — 1967 |
| The 1948 Arab-Israeli War followed the end of the British Mandate and the declaration of Israel’s independence. | The Six-Day War between Israel and neighboring Arab states began on June 5, 1967. It is considered an extension of the Nakba. |
| Israel was established as a colonial settler state on 78% of historic Palestine, leading to the destruction of many Palestinian villages. | Israel occupied the remaining 22% of historic Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza), as well as the Sinai Peninsula (which was later returned to Egypt) and the Golan Heights in Syria. |
| Approximately 750,000 Palestinians became refugees, either fleeing or being expelled from their homes. The Nakba established a permanent state of exile and diaspora for many Palestinians. | Around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians were displaced from the West Bank and Gaza, some for the second time. This led to the long-term military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and defines the reality for Palestinians in the occupied territories today. |
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Categories: Palestine/Israel