[News] Israel says 40, 000 displaced Palestinians in northern West Bank will not be allowed to return

Tue Feb 25 09:19:22 EST 2025

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/israel-says-40000-displaced-palestinians-in-northern-west-bank-will-not-be-allowed-to-return/?ml_recipient=147312887330768773&ml_link=147312837619877111&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-02-25&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Israel says 40,000 displaced Palestinians in northern West Bank will not be
allowed to return
Qassam Muaddi
February 25, 2025
------------------------------
[image: 190225_Jenin_MN_001-1536x1024.jpg]
Israeli forces close the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, February 19,
2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)

The Israeli army expanded its ongoing offensive in the northern West Bank
to include the town of Qabatiya on Sunday, the second-largest town in the
Jenin governorate, six kilometers south of Jenin city. The Israeli army
pushed armored vehicles into the town in the early hours of Sunday morning
and began demolishing a series of stores at the town’s entrance. According
to residents, Israeli bulldozers immediately started to tear out water
pipelines in the streets and demolished the outside wall of a historic
cemetery containing a memorial for the tombs of 45 Iraqi soldiers who were
killed defending Jenin in the 1967 War.

Following the beginning of the Israeli attack on Qabatiya, Israel’s war
minister Israel Katz, announced the expansion of the “Iron Wall” offensive
to Qabatiya in a written statement. Katz also admitted that Israeli forces
had expelled 40,000 Palestinians from three refugee camps in Jenin and
Tulkarem, a figure reported by UNRWA
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/israel-has-displaced-40000-palestinians-in-the-west-bank-unrwa-says/>
weeks ago.

Katz said the refugee camps were now “empty of residents” and that “UNRWA
activity in the camps has also been stopped,” asserting that he had
instructed the Israeli army
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/katz-says-he-instructed-idf-to-stay-for-year-in-west-bank-refugee-camps-and-not-allow-40000-residents-home/>
not to allow the residents of the camps to return to their homes for an
entire year. “We will not return to the reality that was in the past,” he
said. “We will continue to clear refugee camps and other terror centers to
dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, in Jenin city, the Israeli army deployed tanks for the first
time in 23 years in the West Bank. Several Israeli Merkava tanks were
spotted in the surroundings of Jenin as the Israeli army announced
deploying an armored division from its 188th brigade.

The refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been the site of
ongoing armed resistance
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/our-freedom-is-close-why-these-young-palestinian-men-choose-armed-resistance/>
against Israeli forces for the past three years, which has come under a
harsh Israeli crackdown since October 2023. Since then, the Israeli army
has expanded its offensive throughout the entire northern West Bank, as
armed resistance spreads from the cities to the countryside
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/from-the-cities-to-the-countryside-armed-resistance-is-spreading-in-the-west-bank/>
.
*Destruction in Qabatiya*

In Qabatiya, the Israeli attack’s impact on life was immediate and
devastating. Iyas Sabaaneh, director of the town’s primary school,
told *Mondoweiss
*that “we were forced to suspend classes because most of the teachers are
from outside Qabatiya and they couldn’t come. The army has sealed off the
town’s entrances and bulldozed the roads leading to it. And it has imposed
a curfew on the town since the beginning of the offensive.”

“We have 700 children at our school, and the secondary school in the town
has 450 students, which also suspended classes,” Sabaaneh added. “The
occupation has bulldozed many streets and destroyed water pipes, causing
some areas to flood and cutting running water from all of the eastern parts
of Qabatiya.”

Sabaaneh said that the Israeli army had raided several homes in the town
and turned them into military posts, forcing its inhabitants to leave. “The
occupation’s bulldozers demolished the surroundings of a medical center,
the courthouse, the municipality, the old mosque, and our schools,” he
said.
Palestinians inspect destruction caused by Israeli forces after attacks on
town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, February 23, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed
Nasser/APA Images)

The marketplace in Qabatiya, which is the main source for purchasing
produce for dozens of villages south of Jenin and north of Nablus, is
completely closed. “This not only affects the population’s access to food,
but also the farmers in the surrounding region who can’t come to sell their
produce,” Sabaaneh explained. “Many of Qabatiya’s residents are farmers who
can’t access their lands now.” He added that thousands of crops, especially
strawberries, citrus, and thousands of chickens, all of which rely upon
automated irrigation systems and electricity, are “at immediate threat of
dying as water and electricity are cut off.”
*Expanding offensive accompanied by Israeli escalation on all fronts*

Israel’s ongoing escalation in the West Bank has received the support of
Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum. On Monday, Israeli
opposition leader Benny Gantz said that Israel must send more forces to the
West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced further
escalation in the region. In a speech at a graduation ceremony for Israeli
army officers, Netanyahu stated on Sunday that Israel will maintain its
forces on the Syrian Mount al-Sheikh and in the Syrian territories it
occupied s
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/israel-occupies-new-syrian-territory-following-assads-collapse/>ince
the collapse of the Assad regime last December. Netanyahu also stressed
that Israel will not allow any military presence by the new Syrian army
south of Damascus.

Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes bombed several locations in the south of
Lebanon and in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley on Sunday during the funeral
ceremony of Hezbollah leaders Hasan Nasrallah and Hashem Safiyuddin in
Beirut. Israeli warplanes also flew over the crowds participating in the
funeral at low altitude.

Israel’s escalation on all fronts comes at the same time that Netanyahu’s
government maneuvers to avoid moving into negotiations with Hamas over the
second phase of the ceasefire deal in Gaza, which would include the end of
the war.

On Monday, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-02-24/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-aims-to-release-all-hostages-in-one-single-stage-but-hamas-is-unlikely-to-agree/00000195-3492-d670-ad97-7dd7df740000>
that Netanyahu had presented a plan to U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff
that includes the release of all remaining Israeli captives in Gaza in one
single batch — without moving on to a second phase of the ceasefire
agreement. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu hopes that the U.S. will
pressure Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase and avoid moving
to negotiations over the end of the war.

Last week, Netanyahu suspended the release of 600 Palestinian prisoners
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/netanyahu-suspends-release-of-600-palestinian-prisoners-over-degrading-handover-ceremony/>
after Israel received three captives and four dead bodies released by Hamas
in Gaza. Netanyahu’s office said that the reason was Hamas’s “degrading”
release ceremonies, while Hamas accused Netanyahu of trying to escape the
obligations agreed upon in the ceasefire deal.
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