Mass arrests come as army issues evacuation orders to families in the Nur Shams camp, giving them three hours to leave.
The Israeli military has arrested dozens of Palestinians as part of an expansion of its military operations across the occupied West Bank.
At least 50 people were arrested in overnight raids, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, both cited by a report by the Palestinian news agency Wafa on Wednesday.
According to Wafa’s report, the military rounded up people for interrogation in the governorates of Hebron, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Tubas.
As part of the campaign, Israeli troops stormed the Majed Abu Sharar School in the city of Dura near Hebron and arrested two students, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said on Wednesday.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October 2023 to more than 14,500, including those who were released later, according to Palestinian groups.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip, whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
The mass detentions came amid Israel’s intensified military offensive in the West Bank that began after the Gaza ceasefire was agreed upon a month ago.
The offensive has seen at least 62 Palestinians killed and about 40,000 people evacuated from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps in the West Bank in a month.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, on Wednesday said the occupied West Bank was now a ”battlefield” facing an “alarming spillover” of the Gaza war.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for the residents of the Nur Shams camp, located east of the town of Tulkarem, before the planned demolition of 11 residential buildings.
Israeli forces gave the residents just three hours to evacuate their homes, according to Wafa. Families were seen leaving their homes carrying the few belongings they were able to take.
On Sunday, the Israeli army sent tanks to the Jenin refugee camp, the first such deployment since its crackdown on the second Intifada in 2002, announcing an “extended stay” for the coming year to fight Palestinian armed groups.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said the move was a continuation of Israel’s “genocide, displacement and annexation”.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority condemned the repeated obstruction of ambulances in the West Bank by Israeli forces, accusing them of violating international humanitarian law.
Israeli occupation forces deliberately obstruct an ambulance, blocking its path to the hospital and denying lifesaving medical care. Another flagrant violation of humanitarian law and yet another act of collective punishment against the defenceless Palestinian people. pic.twitter.com/hpWrz9ZYPC
— Government Communication Center (@pal_gcc_en) February 26, 2025
The PA’s governing body signalled more trouble to come ahead of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which is expected to start on Saturday, warning that Israeli authorities were preparing to “impose unprecedented repressive policies” to further isolate occupied East Jerusalem and its Palestinian surroundings.
It said Israel would place limits on the number of Muslim worshippers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The military has already deployed 3,000 armed personnel at checkpoints surrounding East Jerusalem and has tightened its grip on 82 military checkpoints.
At least 924 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
