UN Report Warns of 'Ethnic Cleansing' and Forced Displacement in Israeli West Bank Operation

A recent United Nations Human Rights report has revealed that Israel's military actions, which led to the displacement of entire Palestinian populations across three refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, "appear to amount to collective punishment and raise concerns of ethnic cleansing."

Israel's Operation Iron Wall, conducted in January and February 2025, resulted in the deaths of 102 Palestinians and forced more than 33,000 residents to flee the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, according to the report titled Destruction of Palestinian refugee camps in northern West Bank. Displaced Palestinians shared accounts of Israeli officers instructing them that refugee camps would no longer exist and that they should "all go to Jordan."

The findings, released on Friday by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), noted that such systematic, long-term, and large-scale displacement of the Palestinian population could constitute the crime against humanity of forcible transfer. The report emphasized that utilizing air strikes, armoured bulldozers, and controlled detonations to turn entire neighborhoods uninhabitable—while preventing residents from returning without imperative military necessity—violates international law.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk stated, "The way Operation Iron Wall has been conducted suggests its aim was to expel as many Palestinians as possible and to make way for more illegal Israeli settlements, in further violation of international law."

The three affected camps are part of 19 total camps in the West Bank established following the mass forced expulsion during the Nakba in 1948, and they have been managed by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Statistics from UNRWA show that approximately 33,362 displaced Palestinian refugees remained forcibly displaced as of July.

The military operation also claimed the lives of at least 21 children. Among the victims was 10-year-old Saddam Hussein Rajab, who was fatally shot in the stomach in Tulkarem while waiting for his father to go to the mosque. In Jenin, a two-year-old girl was shot in the head by Israeli forces while eating dinner with her mother and aunt.

Concluding its findings, the report urged Israel to "end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible" and to "halt any efforts to forcibly displace more Palestinians."