refugee camps

Israeli forces operating in the Nur Shams refugee camp, near Tulkarem, January 12, 2026. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Paving military roads, Israel prepares permanent control of West Bank camps

A year after their expulsion from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps, refugees wait not only to return, but to reclaim the rights the camps preserved.

By Majd Jawad January 19, 2026

Israeli security forces from the Kfir Brigade during a military raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on March 12, 2025. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

In Nur Shams and Tulkarem, Israeli incursions leave ‘nothing to salvage’

Since January, the army has depopulated the two West Bank camps and destroyed hundreds of homes, while turning others into barracks.

By Basel Adra June 5, 2025

Israeli soldiers operate with their armored vehicles in the West Bank city of Jenin, March 4, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Israel’s designs for Jenin refugee camp are about more than just destruction

After being expelled from their homes, residents watch from afar as the army re-engineers the camp to inhibit resistance and undermine the right of return.

By Majd Jawad April 16, 2025

Latest

Smokes rises above Jenin refugee camp during an Israeli military operation to crack down on armed resistance, January 24, 2025. (Wahaj Bani Moufleh/Activestills)

‘Worse than the Second Intifada’: West Bank refugees reel from Israeli offensive

Displaced from Jenin and Tulkarem, Palestinian residents say Israel is waging a deliberate campaign to make the northern refugee camps unlivable.

By Hanno Hauenstein February 21, 2025

Seawater damages the tents of displaced people on the beach in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, November 25, 2024. (Doaa Albaz/Activestills)

PHOTOS: Rainstorm devastates Khan Younis displacement camp

Heavy rain and strong winds battered the tents of Gazans displaced by Israel’s onslaught, leaving many without any shelter for the coming winter.

By Doaa Albaz November 29, 2024

Rubble on the streets of the West Bank city of Jenin, following a major Israeli aerial and ground offensive in Jenin, in one of Israel's biggest military operations in the Palestinian territory in years, July 4, 2023. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Israel’s war on refugee camps seeks to correct its mistake of 1948

Refugee camps have long been a nexus of Israeli oppression and Palestinian resistance. The Jenin invasion reveals a new stage in that battle.

By Ameer Makhoul August 1, 2023

A general strike by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Balata camp, in the West Bank city of Nablus, January 24, 2023. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

UNRWA strike spotlights spiraling conditions in West Bank refugee camps

The protest by workers at the UN agency comes amid funding cuts and escalating pressure to 'eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue.'

By Basel Adra February 14, 2023

Palestinian mourners attend the funeral one a fighter killed by Israeli forces in Jenin, occupied West Bank, September 28, 2022. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

In Jenin and Nablus, resistance and despair go hand in hand

Palestinian youths are taking up arms amid unrelenting Israeli incursions into refugee camps, with the pervasiveness of death ensuring more will follow.

By Yuval Abraham October 5, 2022

Palestinian gunmen take part in the funeral of two Palestinians who were shot dead by Israeli security forces, during their funeral in Jenin, in the West Bank, March 31, 2022. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

How a resurrected militia is defying Israeli and Palestinian rulers

In Jenin and Nablus, members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are uniting with other factions to challenge Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as more young fighters from refugee camps take up the mantle of armed resistance.

By Fatima AbdulKarim and Dalia Hatuqa August 11, 2022

Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa. (Courtesy of the Abu Afifa family)

‘We were like brothers’: Refugee camp reels after army shoots Palestinian on hike

Amar Shafiq Abu Afifa was out strolling when Israeli soldiers gave chase and shot him in the head, adding to a grim toll suffered by al-Arroub refugee camp.

By Yuval Abraham March 10, 2022

Palestinian families who fled to Jordan during the Six-Day War return to the West Bank through Allenby Bridge under an Israeli agreement with the Red Cross, July 18, 2019. (Teddy Brauner/GPO)

The Israeli academics who helped design Palestinian emigration

Newly-uncovered documents reveal how Israel established the ‘Professors Committee’ in the days following the occupation to devise policies to pacify the Palestinians and make them leave the West Bank and Gaza permanently. Mere weeks after nearly tripling the size of Israeli controlled territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel enlisted teams of academics in the country to find ways to encourage Palestinians…

By Edo Konrad June 18, 2019

Israeli activists march during a protest in front of the Israeli army headquarter in Tel Aviv city in solidarity with the March of Return of the Gaza Strip and against the Israeli blockade, Israel, March 30, 2019. (Keren Manor/Activestills.org)

Let’s stop talking about a false ‘Jewish-Arab partnership’

By creating symmetry between Israelis and Arabs, Jews on the left are not only missing the bigger picture — they are actively taking part in erasing the Palestinian struggle. By Rami Younis and Orly Noy The sad state of the “left-wing camp” was clear long before the final results of the Israeli elections were published last week. Without skipping…

By Rami Younis April 17, 2019

The Israeli separation wall surrounds the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev, April 9, 2011. (Activestills.org)

We told ourselves we weren’t settlers. We were something different

In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, we didn’t think of ourselves as settlers, despite the fact that we lived beyond the Green Line and our neighbors were Palestinian. By Ofer Matan The first Arab who stepped into our home was Sabah. The first time we met, Sabah washed his hands in our kitchen sink…

By +972 Magazine October 1, 2018