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TULKAREM: In the West Bank city of Tulkarem, the landscape has been transformed after Israeli army bulldozers plowed through its two refugee camps in what the military called a hunt for Palestinian militants.
The army gave thousands of displaced residents just a few hours to retrieve belongings from their homes before demolishing buildings and clearing wide avenues through the rubble.
Now residents fear the clearances will erase not just buildings, but their own status as refugees from lands inhabited by generations of their ancestors in what is now Israel.
The “right of return” to those lands, claimed by Palestinian refugees ever since the creation of Israel in 1948, remains one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The army said it would demolish 104 more buildings in the Tulkarem camp this week in the latest stage of an operation that it launched in January during a truce in the Gaza war, billing it as an intensive crackdown on several camps that are strongholds of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel.
“We came back to the camp and found our house demolished. No one informed us, no one told us anything,” said Abd Al-Rahman Ajaj, 62, who had been hoping to collect his belongings on Wednesday.
Born in Tulkarem camp after his parents fled what is now the Israeli city of Netanya, about 12 kilometers (seven miles) to the west, Ajaj said he had not foreseen the scale of the Israeli operation.


It began with a raid on the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a longtime stronghold of Palestinian militants, and quickly spread to other cities, including Tulkarem, displacing at least 40,000 people, according to UN figures.
Vacating the camp after a warning of a raid, “we would usually come back two or three days later,” Ajaj told AFP.
Now left without a house, he echoed the sentiments of Palestinians of his parents’ generation, who thought their own displacement in 1948 would also be temporary.
“The last time, we left and never returned,” he said.
In Tulkarem, the Israeli army’s bulldozers plowed through the dense patchwork of narrow alleyways that had grown as Palestinian refugees settled in the area over the years.
Three wide arteries of concrete now streak the side of Tulkarem camp, allowing easy access for the army.
Piles of cinder blocks and concrete line the roadside like snowbanks after a plow’s passage.


Ajaj said the destruction had been gradual, drawn out over the course of the operation, which the army has dubbed “Iron Wall.”
Beyond the military value of wide access roads, many residents believe Israel is seeking to destroy the idea of the camps themselves, turning them into regular neighborhoods of the cities they flank.
Residents fear this would threaten their refugee status and their “right of return” to the land they or their forebears fled or were expelled from in 1948.
The current Israeli government — and particularly some of its far-right ministers, who demand the outright annexation of the West Bank — are firmly opposed to this demand, which they see as a demographic threat to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state.
“The aim is clearly to erase the national symbolism of the refugee camp, to eliminate the refugee issue and the right of return,” said Suleiman Al-Zuheiri, an advocate for residents of nearby Nur Shams, Tulkarem’s other refugee camp, where he also lives.
Zuheiri’s brother’s house was destroyed last week by the bulldozers.
“The scene was painful and tragic because a house is not just walls and a roof. It holds memories, dreams, hopes and very important belongings that we couldn’t retrieve,” he said.
Each demolished building housed at least six families on three floors, he added.
The land allocated to the camps was limited, so residents have had little choice but to build upwards to gain space, adding an extra story with each new generation.


Back at Tulkarem camp, 66-year-old Omar Owfi said he had managed to make two trips into the camp now occupied by Israeli soldiers to retrieve belongings on Wednesday.
He feared becoming homeless if his home was demolished.
“They don’t care what the house is worth. All they care about is demolishing. We’re the ones losing. We’ve lost everything,” he told AFP.
“They want to erase the camp — to remove as many buildings as possible and leave just streets.”
He said he feared for his children and grandchildren, as they dispersed to live with various relatives.
The Israeli supreme court froze the military order for mass demolitions in Tulkarem camp on Thursday, giving the state two months to answer a petition against them, said the Palestinian human rights group Adalah, which filed it.
But the physical damage has already been done as the army’s manhunt for militants continues.
As residents retrieved mattresses, wardrobes and air conditioning units from the camp on Wednesday under the surveillance of Israeli troops, gunshots rang out through the streets.
A loud explosion echoed across the city, followed by a column of dust rising as another building was apparently blown up, sending the smell of gunpowder wafting in the wind.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: US-led ceasefire efforts in Gaza appeared to gain momentum Saturday after nearly 21 months of war, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s office said Israel on Sunday will send a negotiating team to talks in Qatar.
The statement also asserted that Hamas was seeking “unacceptable” changes to the proposal. US President Donald Trump has pushed for an agreement and will host Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to discuss a deal.
Inside Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed 14 Palestinians and another 10 were killed while seeking food aid, hospital officials in the embattled enclave told The Associated Press. And two American aid workers with the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were injured in an attack at a food distribution site, which the organization blamed on Hamas, without providing evidence.
Weary Palestinians expressed cautious hope after Hamas gave a “positive” response late Friday to the latest US proposal for a 60-day truce but said further talks were needed on implementation.
“We are tired. Enough starvation, enough closure of crossing points. We want to sleep in calm where we don’t hear warplanes or drones or shelling,” said Jamalat Wadi, one of Gaza’s hundreds of thousands of displaced people, speaking in Deir Al-Balah. She squinted in the sun during a summer heat wave of over 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
Hamas has sought guarantees that the initial truce would lead to a total end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Previous negotiations have stalled over Hamas demands of guarantees that further negotiations would lead to the war’s end, while Netanyahu has insisted Israel would resume fighting to ensure the militant group’s destruction.
“Send a delegation with a full mandate to bring a comprehensive agreement to end the war and bring everyone back. No one must be left behind,” Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, told the weekly rally by relatives and supporters in Tel Aviv.
A Palestinian doctor and his 3 children killed
Israeli airstrikes struck tents in the crowded Muwasi area on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, killing seven people including a Palestinian doctor and his three children, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Four others were killed in the town of Bani Suheila in southern Gaza. Three people were killed in three strikes in Khan Younis. Israel’s army did not immediately comment.
Separately, eight Palestinians were killed near a GHF aid distribution site in the southern city of Rafah, the hospital said. One Palestinian was killed near another GHF point in Rafah. It was not clear how far the Palestinians were from the sites.
GHF denied the killings happened near their sites. The organization has said no one has been shot at its sites, which are guarded by private contractors and can be accessed only by passing Israeli military positions hundreds of meters away.
The army had no immediate comment but has said it fires warning shots as a crowd-control measure and only aims at people when its troops are threatened.
Another Palestinian was killed waiting in crowds for aid trucks in eastern Khan Younis, officials at Nasser Hospital said. The United Nations and other international organizations have been bringing in their own supplies of aid since the war began. The incident did not appear to be connected to GHF operations.
Much of Gaza’s population of over 2 million now relies on international aid after the war has largely devastated agriculture and other food sources and left many people near famine. Crowds of Palestinians often wait for trucks and unload or loot their contents before they reach their destinations. The trucks must pass through areas under Israeli military control. Israel’s military did not immediately comment.
American aid workers injured

The GHF said the two American aid workers were injured on Saturday morning when assailants threw grenades at a distribution site in Khan Younis. The foundation said the injuries were not life-threatening. Israel’s military said it evacuated the workers for medical treatment.
The GHF — a US- and Israeli-backed initiative meant to bypass the UN — distributes aid from four sites that are surrounded by Israeli troops. Three sites are in Gaza’s far south.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have rejected the GHF system, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and is not effective. Israel says Hamas has siphoned off aid delivered by the UN, a claim the UN denies. Hamas has urged Palestinians not to cooperate with the GHF.
GHF, registered in Delaware, began distributing food in May to Palestinians, who say Israeli troops open fire almost every day toward crowds on roads heading to the distribution points.
Several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses. The UN human rights office says it has recorded 613 Palestinians killed within a month in Gaza while trying to obtain aid, most of them while trying to reach GHF sites.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is led by medical professionals employed by the Hamas government. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.