On June 25, Mutawakil al-Mohamad and his family woke up to the sound of Israeli soldiers who beat them with their rifles.
It would be the last time they woke up in their family home in East Jerusalem.
The Israeli forces arrived at 7 am in military convoys with two heavy bulldozers, and Al-Mohamad was terrified by the soldiers who raid his house and stop him or his relatives.
Instead, the soldiers told the family that their house was in a designated “military zone” and ordered them to leave immediately so that they could bulldozer on the ground.
“When I opened the door, I said to the soldiers:” My young children are afraid. I asked them to give me 10 minutes, then we will all come out of the house, ”said Al-Mohamed. The soldiers forced, he recalls Ramallah, the administrative capital of the occupied West Bank, where he now lives.
Demolitions and displacement
Israel demolished more Palestinian houses through occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, at a higher rate in 2025 than any previous year since the start of the occupation in 1967.
The Israeli authorities have already destroyed 783 structures – a figure that does not include large -scale destruction in refugee camps – leading to forced displacement of 1,119 people, according to the United Nations.
In the Palestinian refugee camps, Israel destroyed around 600 structures in the Jenin camp and 300 structures combined in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps as part of the military raids he launched at the beginning of this year, according to Al-Haq.
Human rights groups, civilians and analysts have declared that the real objective of Israel’s tactics – demolitions of systematic houses and forced displacement – is to make life unbearable for Palestinians, so the more will consider leaving if they can.
“Israel’s objective in the West Bank is the same as its objective in Gaza.… He wants to target all the Palestinians,” said Murad Jadallah, human rights researcher at Al-Haq.
Jadallah argued that the War of Israel in Gaza, that many experts called a genocide, shocked the world and distracted a lot from its unprecedented destruction in the West Bank.
“Israel has the destruction images he created in Gaza in order to push his program in the West Bank,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Little support
Since the start of this year, around 40,000 Palestinians have fled Israeli military operations in the Cisjordani refugee camps.
Many have had trouble finding affordable replacement housing, praising instead in the villages where they find space, staying with parents in overcrowded houses or languishing in public buildings converted into shelters for displaced people, said Jadallah.
Ahmed Gaeem, 60, recalled that the Israeli soldiers evil him, his wife, five children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews of their building in the Tulkarem refugee camp in March.
The family was also informed by Israeli soldiers that Tulkarem had been appointed “military zone” and that they would not be allowed to return for a while.
“We left with the clothes on the back and nothing else. We did not have time to do anything,” Gaem told Tel Aviv Tribune.
A few weeks after the start of Israel’s military campaign, one of Gaem’s sons managed to return briefly to assess the damage to their home remotely.
Their house – like countless others – has been destroyed. Its windows have been broken, the hinges of the blown door and the walls collapsed.
Gaem’s family is currently renting three houses in the village of Iktaba, a few kilometers from the city of Tulkarem, for a combined rent of around $ 1,300 – a fortune for a family surviving per meager savings.
Gaeem noted that if his salary as a civil servant of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is $ 500 per month, he has not been paid for months due to the continuous economic crisis of the AP.
In recent years, the PA has reduced wages and has struggled to pay its staff following the drop in donors’ support and the refusal of Israel to hand over the tax revenue that it perceives on behalf of AP, an arrangement presented in the Oslo agreements.
The AP itself was born from the 1993 and 1995 Oslo peace agreements, which were signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The agreements ostensibly aimed to cause a Palestinian state in the years that followed.
Unprecedented crisis
Oslo agreements have divided the West Bank into three areas.
The PA was responsible for supervising security and executive functions in zone A and executive functions in zone B while Israel remained in total control of zone C.
This control allowed Israel to quietly and gradually extend illegal establishments – after having surrounded, then demolish Palestinian houses and communities – in zone C, a largely agricultural region which represents around 60% of the West Bank.
In July, the Israeli army made two orders which gave it an additional legal pretext to demolish the houses in zone B – a power previously owned only by the AP under the Oslo agreements. The orders have enabled Israel to assume control of laws and laws on the construction and planning of agricultural sites.
Before these measures, most demolitions in areas A and B were carried out during military operations or as reprisals against the Palestinians who resisted the occupation. Israel now has an additional legal basis to destroy Palestinian houses by stating that owners do not have a construction permit.
Israel systematically denies the construction permits to the Palestinians as part of a broader policy of confiscation of Palestinian houses and land, according to human rights groups.
Among the record number of demolitions carried out in the West Bank this year, the UN documented the destruction of 49 structures in areas A and B.
Under international law, Israel is prohibited from destroying private property anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territory and establishing colonies or outposts.
“The extension of demolitions in areas A and B and the way in which Israel is changing legal status in zone B is unprecedented,” said Tahani Mustafa, an expert in the West Bank with the International Relands of the Crisis group.
She added that Israel seems to try to confine the Palestinians to ever smaller ground pockets in the region of the Ultimate Plan of A. Israel, she fears, either to make life increasingly unbearable for Palestinians in urban centers, probably by imposing more control points and barriers to restrict movements and make more raids
The intensifying assault of Israel against the Palestinians of the West Bank already has people like Al-Mohamed fearing that his family would be expelled again.
He said most of the Palestinians predict that Israel will turn his attention to the cities of the West Bank after finishing his military raids in neighboring camps.
“It is difficult for us to go elsewhere than the West Bank,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“It’s our land. This is where we want to live and where we want to die. ”