West Bank Palestinians displaced by Israel’s military fear they’ll never go home again

MARAH SAAD, Occupied West Bank — Tysir Odeh sits in his office, watching a group of kids run and jump at a playground, taking in the early spring sun. Odeh is the head of this small school, normally a boarding school for the blind, but its usual operations were suspended in January as the Israeli military besieged areas nearby, destroying buildings and forcing Palestinians living there to flee.

Now, the school is housing 25 families — nearly 100 people — who have all fled the violence.

“It’s a huge number of families for us,” Odeh says.

He says the school is full, but every day more people come to ask if there’s room, and he has to turn them away.

For now, the families are all from one neighborhood: the Jenin refugee camp, about two miles away, which is where Israel’s extended military operation — which Israel says is for counterterrorism — started on Jan. 21. Jenin has been a focus ever since. But Odeh believes it could just be a matter of time until the military activity spreads, maybe even to his village nearby, and he might also be forced to leave.

“I’m worried,” Odeh says with a deep sigh. “I’m very worried.”

According to both the United Nations and the Israeli government, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced by the Israeli military’s current operation in the occupied West Bank, the largest displacement in the territory in more than 50 years. The U.N. says the operation has killed at least 55 Palestinians, including five children.

The operation was launched two days after Israel’s fragile ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza — which Israel ended this week — went into effect in January. The operation has since spread to several refugee camps in the northern part of the West Bank. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that even as the war in Gaza continues, there is “the possibility that another larger and more intense front could be opened” in the West Bank.

Israel announced in February that it would maintain an unspecified military presence in the camps for the coming year — a significant change in policy, given that up to now, Israel has not maintained a permanent presence. Palestinians who fled would not be allowed to return home, Israel said. Now thousands have been left scrambling to find long-term housing.

At the Society of the Blind school, the kitchen is bustling, as women from the displaced families are gathered cooking. Two crouch over an oven, baking flatbreads stuffed with spinach, onion and sumac; another fries cauliflower and boils rice on the stove.

Sana’a al-Shraim, 51, sits with one group of women at a table in the middle of the kitchen, drinking tea and talking. She fled the Jenin refugee camp with her family, including her one-month-old granddaughter, in January, on the day the Israeli forces came in.

“There was so much confusion, so much violence, we didn’t have time to grab much, we just ran,” al-Shraim says.

She’s grateful they have somewhere free and safe to stay, but she’s never been displaced before. “I’m so stressed,” she says. “I miss my house, I miss my neighborhood. I keep asking, when can we go home?”

Saeda Im Amid, who’s also sitting at the table, says she doesn’t think anyone will be going home anytime soon.

“The Israelis want to displace people now, that’s their objective,” Im Amid says. “They are emptying the land.”

In late February, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz visited troops in the occupied West Bank, along with Netanyahu, telling them that Israel would be “intensifying” its operation throughout the territory and sending reinforcements, focusing specifically on refugee camps, which Israel has called “terror hubs.”

Many of the camps have long been militant strongholds. But they are also built-up urban areas with apartment buildings, family housing, schools and hospitals.

In a statement a few days after his visit to troops, Katz confirmed that several refugee camps in the area had been “cleared,” and vowed that Israel would “prevent the return of residents.”

“We will not return to the reality of the past. We will continue to clear refugee camps,” the statement said.

Palestinian leaders oppose clearing the camps, and fear it will lead to Israel annexing the northern parts of the West Bank — land that has been under Israeli military occupation for decades. The top U.N. court in The Hague ruled last year that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is “unlawful” and urged Israel to leave the occupied territories.

In a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Jenin, on the other side of the city from the refugee camp where the fighting is ongoing, there are still signs of violence. On a recent visit by NPR, streets had been ripped up and buildings damaged by an Israeli military raid the week before. Families and kids walked over the rubble, carrying bags of groceries and jugs of water.

Just off a main road, Rana Abu Hatab was staying in a small borrowed basement apartment with her husband and five children. There were cots and blankets on the floor by the door, two small couches in the living room and one bedroom off to the side.

The family is from the Jenin refugee camp, but left as drones flew overhead and automatic gunfire closed in.

“The kids were really scared, there was a lot of panic in their hearts,” Abu Hatab remembers.

Two of her younger kids — a 10-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy — sit on either side of her on the couch as she talks.

“The kids are out of school,” she says, gesturing to them both. “The internet here is too weak, and school has been cancelled. They’re missing out on education.”

She says her daughter, in fourth grade, worries to her every day that her grades will slip.

Abu Hatab says the family went back to the camp a few weeks after they fled to check on their house and grab more belongings. She was shocked by what they found.

Her older daughter, 21-year-old Malak, takes out her phone and pulls up a video that she says she filmed as she walked through the family’s three-story home. The structure is still standing, but barely — windows blasted out and holes in the walls, furniture broken and strewn about, debris covering the floors and countertops. The end of the video pans out from a shattered window to show that many of the surrounding buildings have been destroyed as well.

The Israeli military says it has been dismantling buildings that are “terrorist infrastructure.”

The U.N. has documented widespread destruction in the camps from the operation, including the demolition of dozens of buildings, tearing up most streets and demolishing critical infrastructure like water, sewers and electricity.

All the displaced West Bank residents who spoke with NPR said they are receiving no formal support and are relying on charity for survival.

Abu Hatab tears up watching her daughter’s video.

“You work so hard in your life to build something and all of it goes in one second,” she says.

She says the family doesn’t have money to rent or buy a new home — they own that home in the camp — and they can’t stay in this basement long term. She and her husband aren’t sure what they’ll do.

But for now, her main concern is finding more blankets for her kids; it’s cold in the basement. And then, she says, they’ll just take it one day at a time.

Nuha Musleh contributed to this report from the West Bank.