“I.O.F. targets refugee camps.”

Zionist terror spreads.

The raid at al–Arroub. 25 February.

15 MARCH—Home demolitions surged in the northern West Bank governorates of Tulkarm and Jenin during the first week of March. On 6 March, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported that Israel Occupation Forces destroyed 16 buildings in the camp of Nur Shams, located in the Tulkarm Governorate. Residents were given two and a half hours to vacate homes they had lived in for years, according to a Middle East Monitor report. The homes were demolished for a new road through the camp for military use.

This latest escalation of violence began on 21 January—timed for the day after Trump’s inauguration—when the I.O.F. launched a new military operation it named “iron wall.”

As the apartheid regime moves to annex the West Bank, it continues to target refugee camps with what is almost certainly the intent to destroy and empty them. This is a straight repeat of the Zionists’ operation as they emptied and destroyed the original homes and villages belonging to the grandparents and great grandparents of today’s refugees.

Operation “iron wall” coincides with Israel’s efforts to shut down all UNRWA facilities throughout Occupied Palestine. Without UNRWA, the camps will quickly collapse. The organization provides many of the services necessary to community and human life: education, primary health care, social services, infrastructure improvement, and basic camp sanitation including overseeing water quality and garbage removal.

Destroying UNRWA is an effective way to erase the presence and existence of Palestinian refugees altogether. This, in effect, renders U.N. resolution 194—which established a right of return for Palestinian refugees to the land and homes stolen during the Nakba—meaningless.

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Even as refugee camps in the north are bulldozed, subject to controlled detonation, demolished, and otherwise emptied, the Zionist regime appears to be moving forward with plans to do the same in camps farther south.

What follows are extracts from a report sent to me by my correspondent in al–Arroub, Qadir al–Thaer. It summarizes disturbing accounts from camp residents of what is almost certainly the initial phase of a large-scale demolition of homes, with the ultimate goal of establishing a permanent I.O.F. presence in the camp.

On February 25, 2025, the Israeli army entered the camp and conducted field training exercises. This was followed by a large-scale raid on February 26. More than 60 soldiers, accompanied by armored vehicles, proceeded to a main street in the center of the camp. They took measurements and informed nearby residents of their plans to widen the street, which would require demolishing several homes.

The stated goal of this expansion is to facilitate the movement of armored vehicles and tanks in future incursions. The army has encountered difficulties navigating this particular road, which is one of the steepest slopes in the camp. It connects the southern and northern main roads of al-Arroub.

Pause for a moment and think about this: The Israeli army routinely conducts military training exercises in refugee camps—densely populated civilian communities—where people live and work and where children go to school and play in the streets. The Zionist regime thinks nothing of demolishing homes to facilitate its campaign of terror and total domination of Palestinian civilian life. All in willful violation of international law.

This is routine Zionist terrorism.

Fun and games. 25 February raid on al–Arroub.

In his report, al–Thaer provided an image of a satellite map of al–Arroub showing three areas identified for future demolitions. Each is marked with a number. He explains the significance below.

Demolition areas. Al-Arroub., March 2025. (Google Maps.)

What follows is based on conversations with people who live in the three areas. Camp residents shared their fears and concerns and reported what they had been told by I.O.F. soldiers. This is also from al–Thaer’s report:

The map highlights three key zones at risk of demolition.

Zone 1 (red-shaded area, upper left): Several residents in this area have received verbal warnings about possible demolitions, though no official reasons were given. There are concerns that the Israeli military intends to establish a base here.

Zone 2 (small area below zone 1): This includes a four-story house belonging to the Jawabra family, which has received a verbal demolition notice. Israeli forces stormed the house and informed its occupants that the upper two floors pose a "threat to Israeli civilians" due to their direct view down onto the main road below. This road is a thoroughfare regularly used by illegal Israeli settlers. There is a strong likelihood the demolition will take place within the coming month.

Zone 3 (bottom center of photo): This marks the street targeted for expansion that was mentioned above. Although demolition has not yet begun, the threat remains imminent.

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I.O.F. soldiers raid al–Arroub daily, launching tear gas canisters from armored vehicles and shooting at random. Tear gas is potent, a chemical that causes severe respiratory distress and can lead to death. In April last year, I met a young man who lives in the old city of Hebron and whose younger brother—4, maybe 5 years old, I don’t recall— died when the family home filled with tear gas.

Hundreds of canisters can be launched in a matter of minutes. The gas settles and accumulates. It’s especially dangerous on days when there is little wind. My tour guide in Aida camp in Bethlehem, told me the camp often reeks of tear gas for days at a time. This was confirmed in a separate conversation I had with a social worker at the camp. My hotel room in Bethlehem overlooked Aida and one night I heard the explosive sound of tear gas being fired as the camp was raided.

The purpose is pure terrorism.

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On 9 March, al–Thaer sent two audio recordings describing a raid in progress. I share them here.

In this second audio file he describes the crackdown on people who are seen recording I.O.F. activity from their windows. Homes are raided—I’ve seen numerous video and photographic documentation of homes that have been raided, everything is torn apart and damaged, cupboards are ripped from walls—and phones are confiscated and destroyed. This has become routine throughout the West Bank and many Palestinians now have two phones—one of which is typically left at home or kept turned off.

I.O.F. soldiers routinely stop Palestinians and demand to see their phones. This happens at checkpoints and during raids. Anyone found with material critical of Israel or supportive of Palestinian rights has their phone destroyed or worse—they may be beaten or arrested.

It is a little recognized and poorly understood fact that Palestinians are not allowed any form of free speech. They are not allowed any right to protest or resist their oppression and brutalization. All forms of resistance, including nonviolent protest, is countered with maximum violence. Zionism imposes an extreme form of totalitarian control and surveillance over all aspects of Palestinian life.

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The sadism of Israeli forces is hard to overstate. I met a man in Ramallah one year ago this May who had been released from prison only three days earlier. He looked like a survivor of a Nazi death camp. He’d lost 40 kilos (88 pounds) and he had been severely beaten the day before he was sent home. One side of his face was still bruised. His jaw had been broken.

Last week two men in al–Arroub were victims of similar treatment at the hands of I.O.F. sadists. I share the following images and stories to remind readers that these are daily occurrences. This is the true face of Zionism and the Zionist apartheid regime.

The following two pictures are of a man in his 40s, a father, who was beaten in front of his family for refusing to kneel before his Israeli tormentors. The man’s name is Emad. His jaw was dislocated and several of his teeth were broken.

Al–Thaer had this to say when he sent the photos in a text: “I cried looking at these pictures. Emad is a very humble man, and he often prays next to me in the mosque. He’s always smiling and his spirit is always positive.”

The Israeli goons beat this man while his hands were zip tied behind his back.

These are the types of images I receive from friends and contacts on a weekly, almost daily, basis. In the video below a man is taken from his car at gun point, forced to kneel, hit in the face with the rifle, kicked in the groin and repeatedly struck. He was taken into detention and returned home hours later with fractures to his skull and a dislocated jaw.

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Of all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime, and there are very many, the worst by far—documented in the above video—is what Zionists have done to generations of Israeli Jews: They destroyed the humanity of their own children.

Zionism in all of its forms—Jewish, Christian, political—is a scourge on the human mind and heart. What you witness in the video above is increasingly happening in the U.S. to people who support Palestinians rights—albeit not yet with such savage violence. Indeed the struggle against Zionism is now being waged on American soil, at American universities, and in the media, as Zionism continues to threaten and undermine the most basic rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The struggle against empire and authoritarianism in the West—tipping toward brute totalitarianism almost by the day—is inextricably linked with the Palestinian cause. If we in the West fail to understand this point and fail to act accordingly—as if our own freedom and dignity weren’t in fact at stake—what we see in Emad’s battered and bloodied face may well be our future.

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