UN report criticizes Israel’s actions in West Bank refugee camps

A United Nations report has accused Israel’s security forces of actions in three occupied West Bank refugee camps that may amount to serious violations of international law, including possible crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

The document concerns events at the start of 2025, when the Israeli army, police and other security forces entered the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams. According to the report, Palestinian civilians were killed, hundreds of homes were destroyed, roads and other infrastructure were damaged, and water and electricity supplies were cut.

More than 33,000 residents were driven from their homes and have still been unable to return, the report says. It highlights forced displacement in occupied territory as one of the crimes against humanity prohibited under international law. The report also stresses that courts, rather than the document itself, would have to make final findings on such violations.

The report says the use of air strikes, armored bulldozers and controlled demolitions to make entire camps uninhabitable, force residents to flee and prevent their return would be unlawful under international law if there was no unavoidable military necessity. It describes the conduct as appearing to resemble collective punishment and raising suspicions of ethnic cleansing.

Israel has said Operation Iron Wall aimed to destroy militant groups and their infrastructure in Palestinian refugee camps.

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The use of air strikes, armored bulldozers and controlled demolitions to make entire camps uninhabitable, force residents to flee and prevent their return, if there is no unavoidable military necessity, is unlawful under international law, appears to resemble collective punishment and raises suspicions of ethnic cleansing.