Israeli tanks enter Jenin in occupied West Bank as military operation displaces more than 40,000 Palestinians

Israel’s military operation in the occupied West Bank has now forced more than 40,000 Palestinians to flee their homes in the refugee camp towns of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, according to Israeli officials and the United Nations. It is the biggest displacement of civilians in the occupied West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. 

Over the weekend, Israel sent tanks into the northern West Bank town of Jenin for the first time in more than two decades.

The Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad group, which like Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S., said Monday that the deployment of tanks after the forced displacements in the sprawling Palestinian refugee camps could be a step toward Israeli annexation of the entire West Bank.

An AFP journalist in Jenin reported empty streets on Monday, except for a few Israeli Merkava tanks and displaced refugee camp residents occasionally entering through a back alley to retrieve belongings from their homes.

“We go back in to get things, whatever we can. We take the risk because we have to,” 52-year-old Jenin resident Ahmad al-Qahrawi told AFP. “We had nothing when we left, no clothes, nothing. We go back to get clothes because it’s cold.”

Israel launched a major military operation in the north of the West Bank just a few days after a fragile ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement took hold to end 15 months of war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the much smaller Palestinian territory in the southwest corner of Israel. The Israel Defense Forces has said troops looking for terrorist suspects have cleared the three refugee camps, and it confirmed that tanks were deployed to Jenin.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that troops would remain for many months in the evacuated refugee camps to “prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism.”  

He put the number of people displaced from the camps at 40,000, the same figure provided by the United Nations, which said the offensive had killed at least 51 Palestinians, including seven children, and three Israeli soldiers.

Israel has said the operation — called Iron Wall — is designed to stamp out militancy, but Palestinians fear its real intention is a permanent displacement of the territory’s population and possible annexation. 

Islamic Jihad said the mass evacuations and first deployment of Israeli tanks in the territory since the early 2000s, “confirms the occupation’s plans to annex the West Bank by force.”

The group, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza and has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, denounced “a new act of aggression,” which it said was “aimed at uprooting our people from their land.”

Bulldozers have already demolished large areas of the Jenin refugee camp and the local municipality says military engineers have been seen making preparations for what seems like a long-term stay.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said many residents who fled have taken shelter in “crowded mosques and schools.”

The damage has hampered displaced residents’ “access to basic needs such as clean water, food, medical care and shelter,” and the winter cold “has made it more difficult to survive,” the Red Cross added in a statement.

The U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said the military offensive, “appears to exceed law enforcement standards,” and has had severe consequences.

“The continued use of lethal war-like tactics in residential areas is extremely concerning,” OCHA said.

Israeli hardliners have long pushed for the outright annexation of the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israeli forces since 1967, but such proposals have been met with strong opposition from Palestinians and much of the international community.

Violence has soared in the West Bank since Hamas triggered the war in Gaza with its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. About 1,200 people were killed in that attack and 251 others kidnapped. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has displaced the vast majority of that territory’s population, left most of its homes and other infrastructure in ruins, and killed well over 48,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

As violence has risen in the West Bank, so too have calls from far-right Israeli politicians for the annexation of the territory.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday rejected “calls for annexation” and said he was “gravely concerned by the rising violence” in the West Bank.

“We are closely watching developments, and cannot hide our concern when it comes to the West Bank,” said European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. 

President Trump has said he will announce his position on the occupied territory within weeks. His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is due back in the region this week, with the hope that he can help push forward negotiations aimed at ensuring a second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as the first six-week phase is due to end this weekend.