ISTANBUL

More than 32,000 Palestinians have been displaced by an ongoing Israeli offensive in refugee camps in the northern West Bank, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Thursday.

The Israeli army launched a large-scale military offensive in the Jenin refugee camp on Jan. 21, which later spread to the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps and other areas in the northern West Bank.

Rolan Friedrich, Director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank, said the Israeli assault emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps, displacing some 32,000 residents.

“And yet, even in these ghost towns that were once vibrant camps, Israeli forces still see the need to order demolitions for the sake of so-called ‘military purposes,” Friedrich added in a statement.

He noted that the Israeli authorities issued two mass demolition orders for over 190 buildings in the Jenin refugee camp, while 12 more buildings will be demolished in the upcoming days, which marks “the newest episode in continued efforts to re-engineer the topography of refugee camps in the northern West Bank.”

The UNRWA official said Israel’s systematic destruction violates the basic principles of international law and expands the army’s control over the refugee camps in the long term.

Friedrich called for the rebuilding of the refugee camps and the return of the displaced residents.

“They must not be trapped in interminable displacement,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army began another military campaign in the Tubas governorate in the northern West Bank, arresting over 60 Palestinians and injuring 10 others.

Alongside the two-year war in Gaza, where nearly 70,000 people have been killed, assaults by the army and illegal settlers in the West Bank have killed at least 1,083 Palestinians and injured about 11,000, while more than 20,500 have been detained, according to official Palestinian figures.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.