<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="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">mondoweiss.net</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel says 40,000 displaced Palestinians in northern West Bank will not be allowed to return</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Qassam Muaddi</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">February 25, 2025</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<img src="cid:ii_m7kknkoa0" alt="190225_Jenin_MN_001-1536x1024.jpg" width="462" height="308"><br>
<font size="1">Israeli forces close the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, February 19, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)</font>
<br><p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/israel-has-displaced-40000-palestinians-in-the-west-bank-unrwa-says/">figure reported by UNRWA</a> weeks ago. </p>
<p>Katz said the refugee camps were now “empty of residents” and that
“UNRWA activity in the camps has also been stopped,” asserting that <a href="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/">he had instructed the Israeli army</a>
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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/our-freedom-is-close-why-these-young-palestinian-men-choose-armed-resistance/">the site of ongoing armed resistance</a>
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 <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/from-the-cities-to-the-countryside-armed-resistance-is-spreading-in-the-west-bank/">spreads from the cities to the countryside</a>.</p>
<h2><strong>Destruction in Qabatiya</strong></h2>
<p>In Qabatiya, the Israeli attack’s impact on life was immediate and
devastating. Iyas Sabaaneh, director of the town’s primary school, told <em>Mondoweiss </em>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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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. </p>
<img width="462" height="308" src="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23025_Qabatiya_MN_002-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">Palestinians
inspect destruction caused by Israeli forces after attacks on town of
Qabatiya, south of Jenin, February 23, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA
Images)
<p>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.”</p>
<h2><strong>Expanding offensive accompanied by Israeli escalation on all fronts</strong></h2>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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 <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/israel-occupies-new-syrian-territory-following-assads-collapse/">Syrian territories it occupied s</a>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>On Monday, the Israeli daily newspaper <a href="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">Haaretz reported</a>
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.</p>
<p>Last week, Netanyahu <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/netanyahu-suspends-release-of-600-palestinian-prisoners-over-degrading-handover-ceremony/">suspended the release of 600 Palestinian prisoners</a>
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.</p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
<br></div>