Drone strikes, mass arrests, and demolitions: Massive Israeli raid kills at least 11 Palestinians in northern West Bank

Massive Israeli military operations in the northern occupied West Bank have killed at least 11 Palestinians since Wednesday, with thousands of Palestinians trapped inside their homes in the Tulkarem refugee camp, as an Israeli army invasion enters its second day. 

Before dawn on Wednesday morning, January 17, Israeli forces conducted simultaneous raids and drone strikes in the cities of Nablus and Tulkarem.

In Nablus, Israeli forces raided the Balata refugee camp in the eastern part of the city, sparking armed confrontations with local armed groups. Shortly after the raid began, the military carried out a drone strike on a vehicle that was reportedly carrying a number of fighters with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement.

Five Palestinians were killed in the drone strike on Balata. Three of them were identified as Mohammad al-Qatawi, and siblings Saif al-Najmi and Yazan al-Najmi, Wafa reported. 

In the city of Tulkarem, which sits close to the Green Line in the northwestern West Bank, the Israeli invasion began around 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday. A large number of Israeli forces, accompanied by at least two army bulldozers, raided the city and surrounded its two refugee camps, the Nur Shams refugee camp and the Tulkarem refugee camp. 

According to reports, Israeli forces positioned snipers and troops around the vicinity of Tulkarem refugee camp, as well as around two hospitals in the area, preventing the entry and exit of civilians from the hospitals. Meanwhile, Israeli bulldozers began razing roads and infrastructure, including the entrances of homes and storefronts. 

Intense confrontations erupted as armed groups in both refugee camps fought back against the invading troops. Shortly after the invasion began, the Israeli army carried out an airstrike in the al-Tammam neighborhood of the Tulkarem refugee camp, killing four Palestinians, among them two children. 

The four Palestinians were identified as Ahmed Tariq Noman Faraj, 18, Walid Ibrahim Muhammad Ghanem, 17, Ahmed Musa, 17, Ahmed Moin Deeb Mahdawi, 35. 

Medical personnel and sources in the camp told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces prevented ambulances and medical crews from accessing the site of the bombing, though crews were eventually able to transport the four martyrs and three others who were wounded in the drone strike to the local hospital.

As the raid continued in Tulkarem camp, residents told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces were “shooting everywhere and at everyone.” At least two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli live fire, including one young man who was reportedly “assassinated” in his vehicle in Ezbet Al-Jarad in the city of Tulkarem. He was identified as Ashraf Ahmed Yassin, 22. 

Medical sources told Mondoweiss that the 13-year-old brother of Yassin was also injured by live fire when Israeli forces attacked their vehicle but was reported to be in stable condition. 

The sixth martyr in Tulkarem refugee camp was reportedly shot by an Israeli sniper and identified as Abuldrahman Othman Turk. According to local sources, Turk was reportedly left on the ground to bleed out for 12 hours, as ambulances were prevented from reaching him. His body was reportedly tied with a rope by Israeli forces and dragged for a few meters before being left on the ground for hours. A photo seen by Mondoweiss shows a body on the ground, feet bound by a long rope, though it is not visible what the body is tied to. 

Sources told Mondoweiss that after he was left on the ground to die by Israeli forces, a group of women from a neighboring house went outside to cover him with a blanket and placed a pillow beneath his head. Ambulances were unable to reach him, and were shot at every time they tried to enter the area. His body was taken to a neighbor’s home, where local women watched over him and read Qur’an over his body before medics eventually evacuated him.

According to local sources in the camp, there were reports that at least two more Palestinians were killed in Tulkarem camp, including one whose body was reportedly taken by Israeli forces, which would bring the total death count in Tulkarem refugee camp to eight. At the time of publication, however, the Ministry of Health had still not confirmed the killing of a seventh or eighth Palestinian in Tulkarem camp.

Meanwhile, it was reported that one Palestinian was killed in the nearby Nur Shams refugee camp. He was identified as Mohammad Faisal Dowwas Abu Awwad. 

Radwan Bleibleh, a surgeon at the Tulkarem Governmental Hospital (Thabet Thabet Hospital), told Mondoweiss that the process of identifying the number of casualties is incredibly difficult due to the Israeli siege on the camps and the prevention of ambulances and medical crews from accessing the camps.

“We cannot fully know the number of wounded or casualties because the families of the wounded do not take them [out of the camp] for fear of being arrested,” Bleibleh said, adding that many wounded are being treated at makeshift field clinics in the camp, or are receiving triage care by residents themselves.

“We may know the exact number of casualties until the [Israeli] occupation forces withdraw and casualties begin to arrive [to the hospital],” he said. 

At the time of publication, the Israeli army invasion was still ongoing in Tulkarem, approaching on 48 hours, one of the largest invasions in the area since the Second Intifada. While parts of the Nur Shams refugee camp became accessible to journalists after Israeli forces left, the Tulkarem refugee camp is still completely under siege as armed confrontations with local resistance groups continued.

At the time of publication, the latest statement from the Palestinian Red Crescent said that its crews had treated six martyrs in Tulkarem and 34 injuries, among them six for live ammunition, four with shrapnel injuries, and 24 injuries from assault and battery. 

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that with the death toll in Nablus and Tulkarem, the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the start of 2024 reached 41. Since October 7, 360 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank.

Ambulances targeted

Throughout the army invasion in Tulkarem, Palestinian ambulances and medical crews were targeted and attacked and were prevented from treating and evacuating the wounded. 

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, from the outset of the invasion, its crews were held up by Israeli forces and prevented from accessing the site of the drone strike that killed four people and injured several others.

Red Crescent spokesman Ahmed Jibril said it took two hours for ambulances to evacuate the dead and injured due to “arbitrary measures and continuous searches of vehicles,” adding that the longer that injured people are being made to wait for medical treatment, the more it affects their prognosis or ability to survive. 

According to Jibril, one of the ambulances was hit in an “explosion” while exiting the camp, causing shrapnel damage to the ambulance and injuries to the crew. Jibril said that it took around half an hour for the injured crew to be reached and evacuated by another ambulance and that the damaged ambulance was left inside the camp, with the crew unable to retrieve it due to the siege by Israeli forces. 

Israeli forces routinely target Palestinian ambulances and medical crews in the occupied West Bank, and prevent them from accessing the wounded during Israeli military raids. During the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, Palestinian medics have reported being deliberately targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

A policy of collective punishment

Throughout the invasion of both the Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, Israeli forces have embarked on a campaign of destruction, using bulldozers to raze streets and critical infrastructure of the camp, in a practice being decried by residents as “collective punishment.”

According to local sources in both camps, Israeli forces have partially and fully destroyed a number of homes and buildings using bulldozers. In the Tulkarem camp, at least three homes were blown up by Israeli forces. In the Nur Shams camp, at least one home was reportedly set on fire by Israeli forces. 

Faisal Salama, the director of Tulkarem camp services and the spokesman for the factions in the camp told Mondoweiss that the streets, sewage, and electricity networks in the camp, which had all been previously damaged in prior Israeli raids, were targeted once again and further destroyed, causing irreparable damage. 

“The shops surrounding the camp were bulldozed and vandalized. Camp institutions and special landmarks in the camp were vandalized and bulldozed,” Salama said, adding that similar destruction was carried out in Nur Shams camp. 

“The camps are punished under the pretext of the brigades’ presence [here],” he said, referring to groups of armed Palestinians, known as the Tulkarem Brigade, who operate from within the camps. 

“They [Israel] implement a policy of collective punishment of all camp residents, including our services like electricity, water, and the arrest and targeting of young people,” he said, adding that the goal of the military is to cause extensive damage to the camp infrastructure and to civilian life, as a means of “inciting” the local population and turning them against the resistance fighters. 

“Young people have the right to defend themselves, and the camp’s people, from what the occupation is doing in this camp,” Salama said.

“The Israeli occupation is raiding Tulkarem on a daily basis, and attacking the infrastructure of Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugees to try and hurt the people of the camp, and stop them from embracing the resistance” a fighter from the Nur Shams camp told Mondoweiss. 

“But all of their efforts are in vain,” the young fighter said. “The resistance is still holding on, and people’s spirits are not broken.”

Mass arrests and interrogations

Throughout the raid on the two camps, Israeli forces have rounded up hundreds of camp residents, conducting “field interrogations,” raiding homes, ransacking them, and turning homes and buildings in the camp into “field interrogation centers.”

Video footage and photographs from the Tulkarem refugee camp show large groups of civilians being tied up, blindfolded, and corralled by Israeli forces. One image being circulated on social media, reportedly taken inside a building in the Tulkarem camp, shows a crowded room of young men, some sitting up and some lying on the ground, their hands zip-tied and their eyes blindfolded, some with their IDs in their hands. 

Another video shows Israeli soldiers sitting in a room, smiling and talking to the camera as a number of blindfolded Palestinians are sat down and tied up on the ground.

Faisal Samala told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces were positioned in “every alleyway” of the camp, raiding homes and rounding people up. During these raids, as the men and teenage boys are rounded up, he said “the women are placed in one room, while the rest of the house is occupied [by soldiers], its contents are used, vandalized, and stolen.”

Salama said that mobile phones were taken from women and young men inside their homes, and that soldiers broke phones, televisions, and radios. “Doors, windows, and pictures,” were also broken and vandalized by Israeli soldiers, he said, adding that soldiers emptied the contents of some families’ refrigerators, destroying the food and dirtying the home.  

According to Salama, the local community center in the camp was turned into a field “interrogation center” by the army, and the center’s doors, windows, and walls were damaged. Some residents are released after interrogations, and others are arrested and taken away by forces to unknown locations. 

One resident of Tulkarem camp, who asked to remain anonymous, told Mondoweiss that he was arrested along with approximately 1,000 young men from the camp. 

“They entered my house, smashed it, broke it, and arrested me,” he said, describing the soldiers as “frenzied” and aggressive, saying he feared he was going to be killed. According to the man, clashes were ongoing outside, and during his arrest, Israeli forces used him as a human shield as they moved through his neighborhood. 

The man said he was blindfolded and taken to a house with a group of other detainees, where he was held and interrogated for hours, from the early morning until 7:00 p.m. at night.

“They were interrogating us about the camp and the resistance fighters and asking us whether we would open our homes to the resistance fighters or not,” he recounted. “There are some who were severely beaten during their detention, and there are others who are still detained until this moment, that we have no knowledge about,” he said, adding that his brother and nephews were also arrested, but he was unsure of their whereabouts or what happened to them.

According to the man, after his interrogation, he was released to an area outside the camp and threatened by Israeli soldiers not to return to his home inside the camp, saying they would kill him if he did. 

“The situation is very difficult. It’s a war zone,” he said. “They did not have mercy on anyone.”