Israel’s ongoing assault on the West Bank, which began two days after the ceasefire in Gaza took effect, has mostly emptied four refugee camps, Jenin, Tulkarem, Far’a and Nur Shams, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed that the Palestinians who reside in the camps won’t be allowed to return. Some are staying in university dorms, others in makeshift shelters, reported AP. Help for the displaced is limited: The Palestinian Authority is strapped for cash, and UNRWA, the longtime main UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has been handicapped by Knesset legislation that prohibits any Israeli contact with it.
“The West Bank has never seen large-scale forced displacement of the level we’re seeing now” since the June 1967 war, said Roland Friedrich, the West Bank field director for UNRWA. AP notes that during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, some 250,000 Palestinians were forced out of the West Bank when Israel seized the territory, along with East Jerusalem, from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
