Israeli army to demolish 25 residential buildings in West Bank camp

Tulkarem: The Israeli army is to demolish 25 residential buildings in the north West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp later this week, local authorities told AFP on Monday.

Abdallah Kamil, governor of the Tulkarem governorate where Nur Shams is located, told AFP he was informed of the planned demolition by the Israeli defence ministry body COGAT.

COGAT, which is in charge of coordinating civilian affairs in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.

Faisal Salama, head of the popular committee for Tulkarem camp, which is near Nur Shams, said the demolition order would affect 25 buildings holding up to 100 family homes.

“We were informed by the military and civil coordination that the occupation will carry out the demolition of 25 buildings on December 18, Thursday,” he told AFP.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “looking into it”.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

In early 2025, Israel’s military launched a wide-ranging and still ongoing operation it says is aimed at rooting out Palestinian armed groups from refugee camps in the northern West Bank - including the Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin camps.

The operation displaced all the residents and more than 30,000 have yet to return home.

During the operation, Israel has destroyed hundreds of houses in the dense network of alleys that make up the camps to create easy access for its troops stationed inside.

Nur Shams, along with other refugee camps in the West Bank, was established after the creation of Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in what is now Israel.

With time, the camps they established inside the West Bank became dense neighbourhoods not under their adjacent cities’ authority. Their residents pass on their refugee status from one generation to the next.