displaced

Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Hakim Mar’i spends his days lying on a single bed, his disfigured leg raised. The windows of Mar’i’s dilapidated apartment, his latest temporary shelter, are covered with old blankets. Unable to work, Mar’i has no money for electricity, so the blankets have to do. At night, his family lives in near darkness.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But now, even the physical structure – their home – that tied those generations together is gone.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But generations lived there, and now, the physical structure – their home – that tied his family together over the years is gone.

Impoverished, Hakim’s family is in disarray. With its debts mounting and its members facing another eviction, he said he has considered taking his life several times over the past year and a half.

Mar’i cannot afford treatment for his debilitating leg injury, which has developed severe infections. He said he sustained it while working as a labourer inside Israel in 2019. The wound worsened after Israeli soldiers severely beat him when they forced his family from the Tulkarem camp. Diabetes and other untreated conditions have piled on, but he is unable to pay for the needed medical care.

“This joint here is completely gone,” he said, gesturing at the swollen, blackened lower leg that prevents him from working.

“The medicine – by God, the medicine, I haven’t been able to get. My wife and kids tell me: get out travel. Go to America, Turkey – so I can the medical treatment I need… I’m a sick man.”

His mother, Salwa, sat beside him, less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from their former four-storey home. She wept when asked about the family home that was built floor by floor after they were first displaced in 1948 from al-Khudayra, the Arabic name for Hadera, a city in Israel. “We really put a lot into that house,” she said.

After their removal, the Israeli military razed the Mar’i home so a road traversing the now-emptied camp could be built. “Seeing it destroyed was really painful for us – all of us,” she said.

It has been more than 20 months since Israeli forces emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in a sweeping military operation in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians whose families had already been refugees for three generations. Constantly renewed orders for a closed military zone now prevent their return.

Since January 2025, Hakim’s family has been forced to move four times. First, they fled to a converted youth centre before landing in a cramped apartment with their four children, all under 15.

Unable to pay rent, the family could see the landlord’s generosity run its course as this once-temporary housing arrangement now has no end in sight. Hakim owes money at the local shops for food he bought on credit. Some nights, the children eat at neighbours’ houses.

“I have children. I have food. I have drink,” he said. “My hands are empty. Nobody is with me. Nobody is standing beside me.”

‘We’re already at the brink’

The Mar’i family is among more than 33,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps by Israeli forces in early 2025. This is the largest single episode of forced displacement in the West Bank since Israel’s occupation began in 1967, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

UN satellite imagery shows that 20 percent of all buildings across the three camps have been destroyed and another 28 percent are damaged.

“The level of destruction we are seeing is severe and unprecedented,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

According to Friedrich, 85 percent of those displaced have no regular income after many lost jobs when the camps were emptied. More than 80 percent of residents are renting, an unfamiliar expense for families who never paid for housing or utilities inside the camps.

The closed military zone covering the camps is renewed every two months, Friedrich said, with no indication of when – or whether – residents will be allowed to return. “What we saw there is forced displacement,” Friedrich said. “The UN’s position is very clear: People have to be allowed to return. The camps must be rebuilt.”

Unlike after the 2000-2005 second Intifada when the Jenin camp was rebuilt, displaced families and UNRWA staff fear there is no return plan this time.

The Israeli military stated the camps were emptied for “operational security” in its effort to root out fighters from the camps. Friedrich worried the aim of the military operations is to “change the geographical expression of the Palestinian refugee issue”.

Now more than 20 months into what was meant to be an emergency response, funding shortages have left UNRWA unable to cover the vast needs of the displaced population. It has moved some operations to keep schools and basic health clinics functioning. With funds dwindling, the agency has shifted to a “targeted approach”, leaving thousands without support.

Friedrich pointed to a rise in gender-based violence linked to the economic strain on families and to growing depression and anxiety among displaced children observed by UNRWA’s psychosocial teams. “We’re already at the brink now,” he declared.

‘Everyone went their own way’

While Hakim’s displacement plays out in the shadow of the camp, the family of Khadija Zbeidat face their own imminent eviction on the outskirts of Tulkarem. They live in the neighbourhood of Dhinnaba, where sparse houses are interspersed with greenhouses. They are unable to afford a residence closer to the city centre.

As Khadija sat on a couch in the middle of the yard, her many children and grandchildren ran past a small patch of plants she has planted – one of her few remaining joys. “I love plants,” she said. “We had many flowers in our home in the camp. Having the plants here is all I have to feel like myself,” she told Al Jazeera.

Khadija, a widow, shares a tiny spartan room with nine family members, nearly all children, along with a small bathroom and a kitchen barely big enough for one person to cook in. A worn couch takes up one corner. The ceiling is peeling above it.

The room was given to them rent free by a relative of Khadija’s brother-in-law after they spent four months crammed into her daughter’s house with nine other people. “It got really cramped, the pressure on each other,” Zbeidat said. “And we became a burden too.”

Khadija’s family was displaced in January 2025 from the Tulkarem camp’s Haret al-Nadi section, a significant part of which has been destroyed, she said.

“The camp was excellent,” she said of their life before. “I swear, I wish they’d take us back. Everything was close to us, dear – … the closeness, that sense of belonging and the warmth, the company and the neighbours.”

The memories that she cherishes most dearly and that bring her to tears are of food: the stuffed grape leaves and the maamoul cookies made as a neighbourhood together for Eid. This year, there was none of it.

“Nothing. No cookies,” she said. “Nobody even had it in them to do anything any more. Everyone went their own way – scattered.”

Like the Mar’i family and others, they were not allowed to bring their belongings during their abrupt displacement. Some residents have since been allowed to retrieve belongings once or twice from their homes in the camps, but much of what they own remains left behind. Khadija’s daughter-in-law at one point returned to the ruins of the camp – at the risk of being shot – to retrieve a doll left behind that Khadija’s granddaughter Sandy would not stop crying about.

In Tulkarem, displaced families live either in the poorest areas closest to the camp, like the Mar’is, or on the cheaper outskirts, like the Zbeidats, remaining close enough to the health and schooling services that UNRWA still provides. But even a simple trip to buy groceries requires Khadija, who has no car, to travel 2km (1.2 miles).

At night, the family sits outside rather than in the stifling heat of the poorly ventilated room, watching Israeli military drones pass low overhead. “What to do? We’re used to seeing them, to having them around, to them raiding houses,” Khadija said. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

The military raids that always haunted life in the refugee camps have now come to wherever the displaced refugees have fled to. “We don’t feel safe,” Khadija said. “Nor the kids. It’s dangerous. When they want to go out somewhere, my heart stays busy until they come back.”

Waiting to be kicked out again

For months after the displacement, landlords, relatives and shopkeepers absorbed much of the shock, allowing families to stay for free or buy food on credit. But as the emergency stretches to almost two years now, that informal safety net is fraying. The pressure is felt particularly in economically moribund Tulkarem, where many families had relied on jobs inside Israel before Palestinian work permits were revoked after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023.

The owner of the property where Khadija’s family is staying recently sent his sister to tell Khadija’s family to leave. “They think it’s been too long,” Khadija explained. “They want the land, to benefit from the land and the room. … But where can we get money, where to pay from? The rent is very high, and we can’t afford it. We don’t know what to do if she comes again and kicks us out.”

Hakim’s family is on the brink of eviction too. Like others, he received from UNRWA a one-time rental subsidy of 3,000 shekels ($985) and a separate 1,700-shekel ($560) multipurpose cash payment for short-term assistance. “Every minute, I am waiting for the landlord to kick us out,” he said.

Khadija’s family survives on credit from shopkeepers who know their situation and, for now, still extend it – but patience is wearing thin.

Hakim said this goodwill is collapsing: “You tell them: ‘Give me a day, two days. Be patient with me.’ They won’t bear it.”

As distant as a return to her family’s lands in 1948 feels now, Khadija still hopes to return to the camp one day. But she worries that her children may inherit an even more precarious existence than the one that preceded this latest dispossession – refugees for generations displaced yet again. “Only God knows what tomorrow will bring us,” Khadija said.

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United Nations says 22 million people need humanitarian aid as conflict intensifies.

More than 112,000 people have been displaced in Yemen and close to 3,000 have fled the conflict to Djibouti, according to the United Nations, as fighting intensifies between the Iran-allied Houthis and Saudi-backed forces loyal to the internationally recognised government.

“Our resources are very, very, very limited and our stocks will be depleted very soon,” Abdusattor Esoev, mission chief in Yemen for the International Organization for Migration, told reporters on Friday.

Most of the more than 112,000 internally displaced people have been displaced over the last two weeks, mainly along the west coast and in the provinces of Taiz and Lahj, he added.

The displacement began when the Houthis made a rapid advance, seizing control of the entire Red Sea coast of Yemen to tighten their grip on the vital shipping route, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Esoev estimates 22 million Yemenis – or nearly half the population – are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

More than 65,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia, are also threatened.

3,000 Yemenis flee to Djibouti

The crisis is growing “by the hour”, warned Francesco Galtieri, a representative for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), adding that thousands of women who have lost all their possessions are on the run with their children.

Galtieri estimates that 2,000 pregnant women are among the displaced and around 200 are expected to give birth shortly.

Around 3,000 Yemenis have fled Yemen by boat to Djibouti, the UN refugee agency said. The shortest route across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is just over 25 kilometres.

The UNHCR reports that more than 2,400 people made the voyage in the past week – mostly women, children and older people.

The influx is adding pressure on Djibouti and population of about one million people. It already hosts around 36,000 refugees, most from Somalia and Ethiopia, said UNHCR representative Sandrine Desamours.

“While the number may sound small,” it must be seen in proportion to the population, she added.

The strategically important Bab al-Mandeb links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and has become an alternative shipping route as the United States’ war against Iran choked the Strait of Hormuz.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warns that the figure is rising ‘by the hour’ as it calls for safe humanitarian access.

More than 46,000 people have been driven from their homes in Yemen in the wake of the latest escalation in fighting between Houthi rebels and government forces, according to United Nations data.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned that the figure is rising “by the hour” in a statement issued on Friday.

The UN agency called on all parties to the conflict to guarantee safe humanitarian access and protect civilians, aid workers and humanitarian assets on the ground.

“Families are being forced to flee for the second or third time in this conflict, with almost nothing left,” Amy Pope, head of the IOM, said in the statement.

The agency said many people had reportedly fled Mocha with their belongings overnight after the Iran-allied Houthi rebels captured the strategically important Red Sea port city from the internationally recognised government on Thursday.

Entire villages were said to have been abandoned in some areas of the war-torn country. The IOM urged the parties to the conflict to guarantee humanitarian access and ensure the safety of aid workers.

The statement came amid reports on Friday that the Houthis had captured a strategically located island in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and now control Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast.

‘Two new crises’

Separately on Friday, the UN also voiced concern over the Houthis seizing a key humanitarian compound and its assets in Mocha, warning that humanitarian personnel and facilities must be protected.

“The compound houses staff of UN agencies working to provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable communities in the area,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters.

All UN personnel working at the compound had left before the seizure and were “safe and accounted for”, Haq added.

Haq stressed that humanitarian personnel, premises and assets “must be respected and protected at all times”, while calling for safe and unimpeded humanitarian access so life-saving assistance can continue reaching people in need.

Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen researcher at the London-based Chatham House thinktank, told Al Jazeera that deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Yemen will build on what was already one of the world’s worst crises.

“Yemen was already going through one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world,” Al-Muslimi said.

“It got terribly worse after the Houthis cracked down on aid organisations in northern Yemen. But the war continued despite the fragile truce, and what that meant was the destruction of what remained of the economy, with millions of families left without income,” he said.

Al-Muslimi warned that the latest escalation “will create two new crises”, one being further internal displacement, noting that “we’ve already seen more than 10,000 families displaced in the last week alone”, and the other being rising prices for goods inside Yemen.

“Since this is [happening in] a maritime [trade] corridor, it will, for sure, drive further violence inside Yemen, but also from outside Yemen,” Al-Muslimi added.

“The Yemeni population will continue to suffer, first and foremost, more than anyone else, inside or outside the country.”

NEW YORK CITY: About 4,100 Palestinians have been displaced across the West Bank so far this year as a result of demolitions and settler violence, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Thursday.

He warned of a sharp rise in demolitions in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern West Bank in recent days. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli authorities demolished 20 homes and other structures, including a water cistern and solar panels, in two Palestinian herding communities there on Tuesday.

This activity, and demolitions in a nearby third community on Wednesday, displaced nearly 60 people, half of them children, and affected a further 30 seasonal residents. Many of the destroyed properties were built with donor support, Haq said.

Masafer Yatta is home to about 1,200 Palestinians in 13 communities, all of whom have been under pressure to leave after Israeli authorities designated the area a “firing zone.”

Haq said humanitarian officials have reported increased violence by Israeli settlers targeting those communities following the establishment in recent years of settlement outposts nearby.

Representatives of the UN and its humanitarian partners visited Masafer Yatta on Tuesday to speak with displaced residents who are receiving emergency shelter, food, hygiene items, baby products and psychosocial support, Haq said.

Across the West Bank, he added, about 1,500 Palestinians have been displaced so far this year as a result of demolitions, and more than 2,600 have been displaced by settler violence and related access restrictions.