Israel sees West Bank sweeps lasting a year as Palestinians flee

Dan Williams, Bloomberg News on Feb 23, 2025

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A month-long sweep for Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank could continue for a year, Israel’s defense minister said, adding that residents who fled will be barred from returning and that a contested U.N. relief agency’s work there will be halted.

With the Gaza war suspended, Israel on Jan. 21 intensified ground raids and air strikes in three West Bank tenements that grew out of shanties for Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war of its founding. Still referred to as refugee camps and often mired in poverty and lawlessness, they’ve long been incubators for armed Palestinian factions.

Many Palestinians see in Israel’s actions a bid to crush their hopes of statehood in territories it captured in the 1967 war. Hamas, an Iranian-backed Islamist faction which rules the Gaza Strip and has a following in the West Bank, also advocates the destruction of the Jewish state.

The Jenin Camp, Tulkarm Camp and Nur Shams Camp were empty of residents after 40,000 Palestinians left to escape lethal clashes, and the military is expanding operations to the nearby town of Qabatiya, Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

Tanks were being sent to Jenin as reinforcements, according to the Israel Defense Forces — the first such deployment there since a major 2002 offensive carried out in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.

“We are at war with Islamist terrorism in Judea and Samaria,” Katz said in a statement, using biblical terms for the West Bank.

“I instructed the IDF to make preparations for an extended stay in the camps that have been cleared, spanning the coming year, and we shall not allow the return of residents or for terrorism to flourish anew,” he added.

Israel will prevent operations in the camps by UNRWA, Katz said. Israel accuses the United Nations operation, a relief agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, of providing cover for Hamas and has ceased cooperation with it. The U.N. denies Israel’s accusations.

Thirty-nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent camp operations, the Palestinian health ministry said. The IDF says it has targeted gunmen and their facilities, with a view to preventing potentially imminent attacks.

Israel ordered West Bank operations stepped up after three empty buses exploded in a depot near Tel Aviv on Feb. 20. Police said homemade bombs, apparently planted by Palestinians, had detonated prematurely.

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(With assistance from Fadwa Hodali.)

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