Israel’s emptying of West Bank refugee camps amounts to war crimes: HRW

The Israeli military’s forced displacement of Palestinians from three exile camps successful the occupied West Bank earlier this twelvemonth amounts to warfare crimes and a transgression against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

In a 105-page report released connected Thursday, the rights radical said the Israeli subject forced 32,000 Palestinians retired of their homes successful the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams exile camps, starting successful January of this year.

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The forced evictions were carried retired “without respect to planetary ineligible protections”, and Israel has not allowed residents to return, said Nadia Hardman, a elder exile and migrant rights researcher astatine HRW.

Satellite images besides showed that much than 850 homes and different buildings were destroyed oregon heavy damaged crossed the 3 exile camps that were targeted by the Israeli military, the study said.

“With planetary attraction focused connected Gaza, Israeli forces person carried retired warfare crimes, crimes against humanity, and taste cleansing successful the West Bank that should beryllium investigated and prosecuted,” Hardman said.

The study comes arsenic Palestinians crossed the West Bank person faced a question of intensified Israeli subject and settler violence successful the shadiness of Israel’s Gaza war, which has killed much than 69,000 radical successful the coastal enclave since October 2023.

Residents of the Nur Shams exile campy fly their homes during the Israeli subject raid connected February 11, 2025 [Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo]

Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right authorities person besides been pushing to formally annex the West Bank, which experts accidental is already nether a strategy of de facto annexation and apartheid.

Rights groups person been warning for months that Palestinians successful the West Bank faced a heightened hazard of taste cleansing amid the violence.

“Over the past fewer years, we person seen the interaction of the Israeli forces and settlers exerting accrued unit and power implicit the Palestinian people,” Simona Onidi, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) task coordinator successful Jenin and Tulkarem, said successful September.

“These actions are entrenched successful the broader settler-colonial process, wherever the hazard of taste cleansing – done the forced removal of Palestinian communities – volition cement imperishable demographic change,” Onidi said.

‘They were each crying’

The Israeli authorities person said the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camp raids aimed to basal retired Palestinian equipped groups and to dismantle infrastructure from which attacks connected Israeli forces could beryllium carried out.

“The cognition was based connected the knowing that terrorists exploit the terrain and the densely built situation of the camps, which restricts the [military’s] state of action,” the Israeli service said successful a connection to HRW.

But the rights radical said successful Thursday’s study that the subject failed to show “a beingness successful the 3 exile camps of subject objectives, namely Palestinian fighters and subject arms and supplies, that would warrant the forced displacement of the full colonisation of the camps”.

It besides said Israel, arsenic the occupying powerfulness successful the West Bank, had failed to conscionable its obligations nether planetary instrumentality to evacuate civilians safely and past let them to instrumentality to their homes erstwhile hostilities end.

Palestinians rally astatine the entranceway to the Nur Shams exile camp, demanding to beryllium allowed to return, connected November 18, 2025 [AFP]

Displaced Palestinians reported that they were fixed just minutes to leave the camps, often nether threats of violence, and that they had witnessed wide-scale destruction.

A Palestinian pistillate referred to arsenic Nour H successful the study said she and her relatives were told they had 10 minutes to permission Nur Shams exile campy during the Israeli military’s raid successful aboriginal February.

“I asked the soldiers wherever we should go, and they said to the east, and they told america if you spell to the near oregon to the right, you volition beryllium targeted by snipers who are successful precocious places astir the area,” the parent of 5 recalled.

Another Nur Shams resident, Nadine G, told HRW that she “couldn’t recognise the camp” arsenic she was forced retired with her household due to the fact that truthful galore homes had been destroyed.

“There were much than 40 men, and possibly 45 women with their children walking with america astatine the aforesaid clip from my neighbourhood. As we were walking, drones were pursuing america overhead and determination were possibly 20 to 25 soldiers, aiming guns astatine us,” she said.

“We were gathering women on the mode who had besides been forced to leave, and they were each crying.”

HRW calls for investigation

Meanwhile, HRW has called for elder Israeli subject and governmental officials to beryllium investigated implicit the alleged warfare crimes and crimes against humanity that took spot successful the 3 exile camps.

That includes Netanyahu, the Israeli premier minister; Defence Minister Israel Katz; far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Major General Avi Bluth, who oversees the Israeli military’s cardinal command.

The rights radical besides urged third-party countries to enforce sanctions against those individuals.

“They should instrumentality different actions to property Israeli authorities to extremity their repressive policies,” HRW said, including imposing an arms embargo against Israel and enforcing International Criminal Court (ICC) apprehension warrants.

Netanyahu faces an ICC apprehension warrant for alleged warfare crimes committed during Israel’s Gaza war.