‘Largest displacement since 1967’: UN says 40,000 Palestinians uprooted by Israel’s West Bank raids

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli raids across the West Bank have triggered the “largest population displacement” since the 1967 war that led to the occupation of the Palestinian territory.

In a report released on Sunday, the UNRWA estimated that the Israeli attacks over the past few weeks have displaced at least 40,000 people, the vast majority of them from refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

The large-scale assault is by far the single longest Israeli aggression in the West Bank since the second Palestinian Intifada in the early 2000s, “causing the largest population displacement since the 1967 war,” it added.

UNRWA also warned that Israeli statements have suggested the regime’s military will continue the assault for the foreseeable future and prevent Palestinians from returning to the West Bank refugee camps.

“Coercive conditions, threats of demolition, and evacuation orders drove further displacement from these already near-empty camps,” the agency said. “The Israeli Forces continued to deploy militarized tactics and advanced weaponry, including the use of tanks.”

Also on Sunday, Israeli forces shot and critically injured a Palestinian near the southern West Bank town of Tarqumiyah.

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that the victim sustained injuries to the abdomen and was transferred to the al-Ahli hospital in the city of al-Khalil.

Israel’s West Bank attacks empty refugee camps of all residents, UNRWA warns

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned that the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps in the northern occupied West Bank have been nearly emptied of their residents following relentless Israeli attacks on the territory.

The Israeli military launched its offensive against the occupied West Bank on January 21, claiming that it was targeting resistance fighters of the Jenin Battalion.

Israel has ramped up West Bank violence since October 7, 2023, when it launched its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Since then, the occupation forces have killed at least 930 Palestinians and injured nearly 7,000 others in the occupied West Bank.

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