The Israeli military on Thursday continued its widespread operation in the Qalandiya refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, part of a broader wave of violence engulfing the Palestinian territory.
At least 10 people have been injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which accused Israeli forces of denying medical teams access to the area.
Leaflets distributed in the area by the military stated: “Israeli security forces have launched a large-scale operation against terrorists.” The raid began overnight on Tuesday.
“Israeli occupation forces raided numerous homes, detained and interrogated dozens of citizens, forcibly displaced several families, including women and children, from their homes and arrested multiple Palestinians,” read a statement circulated by the Palestinian government.
Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported “widespread demolition operations” involving homes and commercial areas.
Israel’s military frequently raids Palestinian refugee camps, but the scale and context of the latest assault on Qalandiya are raising fears that the region is about to witness a major escalation.
Since the Gaza war, the army has destroyed three refugee camps in the north of the West Bank, causing the displacement of tens of thousands of people. Qalandiya, home to more than 16,000 people according to the UN, is near the main checkpoint between East Jerusalem and Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority.
At the end of July, days after a deadly clash between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the village of Tel, Defence Minister Israel Katz told the army to take control of a refugee camp, without naming which one, as part of an expansion of military operations. He instructed the takeover of the unnamed camp to follow the “Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin model”, a reference to three camps that have been almost entirely flattened by the military and to which residents cannot return.
Israel’s military and defence ministry did not immediately comment on whether Qalandiya was the refugee camp that Mr Katz intended to seize.
On July 27, Israel’s military raided a large training facility in Qalandiya belonging to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, for the second time in less than a month. The agency said the raids “renewed concern over the protection of UN premises under international law”.
“No documentation was presented to explain the purpose of the entry, and municipal officials systematically took photographs of buildings, office spaces, and training facilities,” the agency said in a statement published at the end of July.
UNRWA added that the facility was the oldest vocational training centre in its network and it had been under threat of seizure for “several months”. The Israeli government has taken key UNRWA properties in nearby East Jerusalem.
