Thousands of Palestinians forced out of Nur Shams as war rages on
3 Min Read
The Israeli war on the West Bank has been extensively targeting the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, forcing thousands of civilians out.
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Palestinians displaced by the Israeli occupation carry an elderly man over rubble as they evacuate the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday, January 23, 2025. (AP)
Dozens of Palestinian families were forcibly displaced from the Nur Shams refugee camp on Monday, as the Israeli occupation pressed on with a large-scale offensive in the occupied West Bank.
"We hear explosions and bombings as well as bulldozers. It's a tragedy. They are doing here what they did in Gaza," said Ahmed Ezza, a resident of the camp.
Another resident, Ahmed Abu Zahra, said he was forced to leave his home. "The [Israeli] army came and we were forced to leave after they started destroying our homes."
The Israeli occupation launched the Nur Shams offensive on Saturday as part of a wider war that began in January across Tulkarm and Jenin.
According to Murad Alyan, a member of the camp's popular committee, "more than half of the 13,000 inhabitants have fled out of fear for their lives."
'Unprecedented' escalation
"What we are living through is without precedent," said Ahmad al-Assaad, governor of Tubas, who stressed that Israeli forces were not targeting armed fighters but civilians, women, and children, using home demolitions as a means of forcing people out.
On Sunday, Israeli occupation forces carried out a deadly raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, killing a pregnant Palestinian woman and her unborn child. The attack, part of an intensified Israeli military campaign across Palestinian territories, has drawn sharp condemnation from human rights groups and Palestinian officials.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the killing of 23-year-old Sundos Jamal Mohammed Shalabi, who was eight months pregnant, along with her unborn baby. Shalabi's husband was critically wounded in the assault. According to eyewitnesses cited by Palestinian media, Israeli forces opened fire on the pregnant woman and her husband as they were attempting to flee the violence.
The Israeli rights group B'Tselem described the offensive as an "all-out war on the Palestinian people," saying that since the ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, the West Bank "has been on fire."
Tulkarm’s governor, Abdallah Kamil, stated that the goal of these operations is not security but politics. "They destroy everything," he said. "They are trying to change the region’s demographics."
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said "Israel" was using the same all-out destruction strategy employed in the Gaza Strip.
Read more: Israeli aggression expands, airstrikes hit Tulkarm's Nur Shams
