Israel’s emptying of West Bank refugee camps amounts to war crimes: HRW

The Israeli military’s forced displacement of Palestinians from three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank earlier this year amounts to war crimes and a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

In a 105-page report released on Thursday, the rights group said the Israeli military forced 32, 000 Palestinians out of their homes in the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps, starting in January of this year.

The forced evictions were carried out “without regard to international legal protections”, and Israel has not allowed residents to return, said Nadia Hardman, a senior refugee and migrant rights researcher at HRW.

Satellite images also showed that more than 850 homes and other buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged across the three refugee camps that were targeted by the Israeli military, the report said.

“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted”, Hardman said.

The report comes as Palestinians across the West Bank have faced a wave of intensified Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s Gaza war, which has killed more than 69, 000 people in the coastal enclave since October 2023.

Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government have also been pushing to formally annex the West Bank, which experts say is already under a system of de facto annexation and apartheid.

Rights groups have been warning for months that Palestinians in the West Bank faced a heightened risk of ethnic cleansing amid the violence.

“Over the past few years, we have seen the impact of the Israeli forces and settlers exerting increased force and control over the Palestinian people”, Simona Onidi, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) project coordinator in Jenin and Tulkarem, said in September.

“These actions are entrenched in the broader settler-colonial process, where the risk of ethnic cleansing – through the forced removal of Palestinian communities – will cement permanent demographic change”, Onidi said.

‘ They were all crying ‘

The Israeli authorities have said the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camp raids aimed to root out Palestinian armed groups and to dismantle infrastructure from which attacks on Israeli forces could be carried out.

“The operation was based on the understanding that terrorists exploit the terrain and the densely built environment of the camps, which restricts the]military’s] freedom of action”, the Israeli army said in a statement to HRW.

But the rights group said in Thursday’s report that the military failed to demonstrate “a presence in the three refugee camps of military objectives, namely Palestinian fighters and military arms and supplies, that would justify the forced displacement of the entire population of the camps”.

It also said Israel, as the occupying power in the West Bank, had failed to meet its obligations under international law to evacuate civilians safely and then allow them to return to their homes once hostilities end.

Displaced Palestinians reported that they were given just minutes to leave the camps, often under threats of violence, and that they had witnessed wide-scale destruction.

A Palestinian woman referred to as Nour H in the report said she and her relatives were told they had 10 minutes to leave Nur Shams refugee camp during the Israeli military’s raid in early February.

“I asked the soldiers where we should go, and they said to the east, and they told us if you go to the left or to the right, you will be targeted by snipers who are in high places around the area”, the mother of five recalled.

Another Nur Shams resident, Nadine G, told HRW that she “couldn’t recognise the camp” as she was forced out with her family because so many homes had been destroyed.

“There were more than 40 men, and maybe 45 women with their children walking with us at the same time from my neighbourhood. As we were walking, drones were following us overhead and there were maybe 20 to 25 soldiers, aiming guns at us”, she said.

“We were meeting women along the way who had also been forced to leave, and they were all crying”.

HRW calls for investigation

Meanwhile, HRW has called for senior Israeli military and political officials to be investigated over the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity that took place in the three refugee camps.

That includes Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Defence Minister Israel Katz, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Major General Avi Bluth, who oversees the Israeli military’s central command.

The rights group also urged third-party countries to impose sanctions against those individuals.

“They should take other actions to press Israeli authorities to end their repressive policies”, HRW said, including imposing an arms embargo against Israel and enforcing International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants.

Source: Aljazeera