displaced

Hebron, occupied West Bank – Nour al-Natsha knew there was a chance his home wouldn’t be in the best condition upon his return after 10 days of displacement.

Israeli forces had taken over Hebron’s al-Jalada neighbourhood on October 24, a day after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers nearby. Al-Natsha’s family were given 20 minutes to leave, taking only their money, gold and important documents, and leaving behind most of their clothes, everyday belongings and family photographs.

After hearing that Israeli forces had withdrawn, al-Natsha tentatively returned to check on the house on Monday.

He found the doors wide open, and the house turned upside down. Belongings were missing, as well as his young daughter’s pet bird.

“When we entered the house, it was a mixture of emotions,” the 35-year-old orthopaedic surgeon said. “You couldn’t tell whether you were happy to be back home or heartbroken by what had happened to it.”

The Israeli military operation in Hebron appears to be over – but al-Natsha and his family, and thousands of others in the city, are left to pick up the pieces.

Anxious return

Al-Natsha explained that families and neighbours had gathered on Sunday evening in the nearby Wadi al-Karm area, close to their homes, waiting until around midnight after reports emerged that the military operation had ended. But seeing no signs of a withdrawal, they returned to their temporary accommodation, despite holding on to the hope of going home soon.

Then, in the early hours of the morning, it was confirmed that the military had withdrawn. Al-Natsha decided to head towards the neighbourhood at around 6am. There, he found several neighbours making their way home and waited for relatives to arrive before entering the area and inspecting their houses.

Al-Natsha was initially accompanied by his father and two brothers as they inspected the property, looking for suspicious objects or potential hazards after finding the doors open.

Once they were satisfied that the house was safe, family members began cleaning and putting things back in order, removing belongings they feared might have been damaged or contaminated, in an effort to make the house habitable again and resume their daily lives.

But the family’s return was not without anxiety, particularly for al-Natsha’s four-year-old daughter, Ilya. Her biggest concern was the fate of her pet bird, “Natosh”, which she had left inside the house when the family was forced to leave.

Al-Natsha has no idea where the bird is, whether it is dead, or whether the Israeli soldiers released it. Ilya, meanwhile, keeps asking about her pet.

‘Our paradise on earth’

The return of families to al-Jalada came after 10 days of military restrictions and evacuations affecting several neighbourhoods in Hebron.

During the operation, hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes, while shops and institutions in the areas were closed.

According to previously released figures from the Hebron Governorate’s Support and Relief Committee, 537 families, comprising approximately 3,300 people, were displaced.

With residents now returning, the extent of the damage to homes and belongings, and the lasting effects of the days spent away, remain part of the experience of families trying to rebuild their lives.

For 68-year-old Khaled Shawer, who also lives in the neighbourhood, the damage to homes and the debris and destruction left behind by the military operation could be dealt with. What mattered most was that residents had returned and could begin to regain a sense of stability.

“Everything can be replaced: the destruction, the damage, the dirt, everything,” Shawer said. “But the most important thing is that we have returned to our homes, our paradise on earth, the place where we find our psychological and physical stability.”

The Farsh Al-Hawa area in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank is unrecognisable after Israeli forces demolished a three-story building and industrial facilities there. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the West Bank portfolio in the Ministry of Defence, said he ordered their destruction.

It all started on Friday, when two Palestinians attacked an Israeli military checkpoint in Farsh Al-Hawa, killing two soldiers and injuring others.

Since then, Hebron, the West Bank’s economic capital, has been attacked and put under lockdown by Israeli forces.

Israel has announced a sweeping military assault in the city, targeting the neighbourhood of the gunmen, who were killed on Friday. Israeli forces have already forcibly displaced more than 2,000 Palestinians. City officials say almost half of the displaced are babies and children under 18, along with 81 pregnant women and 204 elderly.

Fahd Ahmaro was forced to leave his home, along with his family. He told Al Jazeera that he planned to stay but felt compelled to seek shelter outside his neighbourhood because the women and children were terrified.

“We left with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Our savings, belongings and documents are all in the house,” he said. “I tried to go back after I got my family out safely, but I couldn’t. It’s not safe any more.”

Palestinian authorities in Hebron have declared a state of emergency and created a crisis group, bringing together government agencies, the private sector and civil society, to respond after thousands of people in the city were forced to flee their homes.

Riyadh Khamis, who serves on the committee, told Al Jazeera that philanthropists who could not bear the thought of fellow Palestinians staying in temporary shelters opened their homes to the displaced.

“Hebron is known for its social solidarity and generosity. Our city was the first to provide aid during the COVID lockdown and during the genocide,” Khamis told Al Jazeera. “Today, our neighbours needed help so we all rallied.”

Real estate developer Mohamed Al-Rujoob is one of the philanthropists who sprang to action at the start of the assault on the city.

Al-Rujoob, who owns several apartments in Dura, a town close to Hebron, announced that the properties would be made available for displaced families, prompting other owners to do the same. He now hosts three extended families in his apartments, including 30 children.

“We must preserve people’s dignity. Today, we host these good people. Tomorrow, who knows? It might be us who need shelter. We’re all under the same occupation and we’re all vulnerable,” he said.

The Israeli army says Hebron is on lockdown, which affects nearly 1 million Palestinians who live in the city and the rest of the district.

Restrictions on movement have had a severe impact on the West Bank’s largest district. Schools have moved to online classes, while Hebron’s universities have made similar arrangements for their 18,000 students until the Israeli operation ends.

The measures are essential for Palestinian students who are stuck in their homes and neighbourhoods, including the besieged Fawwar refugee camp in Hebron, home to nearly 8,000 Palestinians. Israeli soldiers closed the camp’s entrance gate on Saturday, barring residents from entering or leaving, even on foot.

Abdel Fattah Al-Ttitti, a school teacher who lives in the camp and works in a Hebron school, said “we are locked in”.

“If, God forbid, somebody needs medical attention, we may be able to get them to the clinic in Masafer Yatta, but that clinic is poorly equipped. If there’s a medical emergency, they can’t help,” Al-Ttitti told Al Jazeera.

He is glad that schools announced online classes. “Until this campaign is over, there’s no other way,” he said.

Many in Hebron believe that Israel’s military campaign in the city has a political dimension, with Israelis heading to the polls on Tuesday for a general election.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition is vying for every right-wing vote. Violence against Palestinians has proved an expedient campaign tactic for politicians such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Settlement Affairs, Orit Strook.

Both right-wing ministers have homes in illegal settlements in the Hebron area and support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which they refer to as “encouraging voluntary migration”.

Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Fawza Awad, a 75-year-old widow, couldn’t hold back her tears as she described the living conditions she has endured since being displaced from the Tulkarem refugee camp in January 2025 – a result of an Israeli military operation that targeted refugee camps in the northern West Bank, forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

With little money, Fawza and her family found shelter where they could: a small, unfinished house in Tulkarem belonging to her daughter. She currently lives in a portion of the structure alongside her son, his wife, and their child.

The family previously relied on limited financial and food assistance provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), but has not received aid in the past five months.

The UN agency officially announced a 50 percent reduction in the number of food aid recipients in the occupied West Bank in September, citing “critical funding constraints”, the result of reduced funding from international funders. Food needs, conversely, have more than doubled since 2023, when Israel began its genocidal war on Gaza, and increased attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

The WFP noted at the time that approximately 900,000 people in the West Bank are currently suffering from food insecurity.

In a statement given to Al Jazeera, the WFP confirmed that some families had stopped receiving aid before the official announcement in September.

Fawza and her family have been left to fend for themselves. There is no prospect of returning to her old home – she says that the Israeli army has completely demolished the structure, replacing it with a wide road to facilitate the movement of its military vehicles.

She added that one of her sons has been detained by Israel since 2024, while her other sons, who previously worked inside Israel, are now all unemployed.

“I suffer from asthma and high blood pressure, requiring monthly medication that costs at least 200 shekels ($64), an expense no one covers for me. We used to receive modest food aid barely enough for two or three people, but now that has stopped completely,” Fawza told Al Jazeera.

‘Not even bread’

Not far away, in the al-Muwahhad School building in the Thannabeh suburb of Tulkarem, more than 1,000 Palestinians displaced from the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps are sheltering, having found nowhere else to go and unable to pay rent.

Among them are Rabab Qasim, 47, her husband Talib Abu Sarriya, 72, and their three children. For the second consecutive year, they have been living in a small, 30-square-metre (320sq-foot) room on the ground floor of the school, with no source of income and totally reliant on aid.

For the past three months, the family has received no aid whatsoever following the WFP food assistance cut.

“I suffer from a herniated disc in my back, requiring monthly treatment that costs 300 shekels ($96) – an amount I cannot afford,” Rabab said. “I also need physical therapy, which I have never been able to access because I cannot pay for it. I sleep on a worn-out mattress on the floor; all I wish for is to be able to buy a bed.”

Talib told Al Jazeera that the family are often unable to find bread or a meal, and frequently go to sleep hungry. It’s a far cry from their former life in the Tulkarem refugee camp, where he once owned a small vegetable stall. It was a modest livelihood, but one that gave them enough to get by.

Alone in the struggle

The WFP has blamed increasing Israeli pogroms and forced displacements in the West Bank for devastating livelihoods, deepening hunger, and pushing families into even more severe crises. The latest quarterly food security analysis conducted by the WFP indicates that 76 percent of Palestinian households in the West Bank have experienced a significant decline in income.

According to the analysis, 12 percent of the population has poor food consumption, and one-third of households cannot afford a healthy diet due to rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. Rural areas and the governorates in the southern occupied West Bank have been the hardest hit.

Said al-Amour, 61, a resident of Khirbet al-Rakeez in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, told Al Jazeera that he and his 14-person family haven’t received any assistance from the WFP for the past seven months.

In April 2025, while confronting repeated attacks by settlers on the village, Said says he was shot by a settler. The injury resulted in the amputation of his leg and a permanent disability; he continues to face periodic assaults and beatings whenever he encounters the settlers – part of the ongoing pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank.

“They are trying to steal our land. I refuse to let them take it, and I will continue to defend it, but I am paying a heavy price. Now, they have cut off the aid I used to receive that helped my family remain steadfast here,” he told Al Jazeera.

Due to the amputation of his leg, al-Amour requires monthly medical treatment costing at least 1,200 shekels ($385), an expense that he cannot afford. He has no source of income other than a few olive trees, which settlers frequently attempt to seize.

Collapse of livelihoods

In cooperation with its partners, the WFP still provides assistance to 200,000 Palestinians in the West Bank through cash transfers, food vouchers, direct food supplies, livelihood programmes, and nutritional services.

However, the WFP told Al Jazeera that it simply does not have the resources to cover the needs of all the families in the West Bank requiring assistance.

“The cessation of aid does not imply that a beneficiary is ineligible; rather, it is a broad decision affecting all current beneficiaries, regardless of the outcome of their individual assessment,” the WFP said. “It is possible that changes may occur, and aid could be reinstated for some beneficiaries; in such cases, they would be contacted and notified via text message.”

Economist and human rights activist Ubai Aboudi told Al Jazeera that the West Bank is facing a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the loss of the WFP food aid, as well as a financial crisis affecting the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel has completely withheld the customs revenues it collects on behalf of the PA since May 2025, leaving the authority unable to pay public sector salaries.

Aboudi noted other factors, such as the tens of thousands of Palestinians previously employed in Israel and illegal settlements in the West Bank who have been out of work since October 2023, when Israel stopped giving them work permits.

He also added that Israeli restrictions on Palestinian and international NGOs, including the suspension of registration for 37 international organisations and the closure of some local groups, have further limited the ability to provide humanitarian assistance.

“Around half a million Palestinian families need food assistance, while the actual need may be greater,” Aboudi said. “With aid declining from the World Food Programme and other sources, many families are unable to secure food.”