The humanitarian crisis facing 42,000 forcibly displaced Palestinians in the West Bank

People carry their belongings as they cross a destroyed street while fleeing the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarem, February 26, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)

Abdelsalam Odeh and his wife have been living in a bus for the past three months. The couple had nowhere to go and no means to pay rent after being expelled at gunpoint from their lifelong home in the Tulkarem refugee camp by the Israeli army earlier this year.

But desperation has a way of unlocking ingenuity — and for 71-year-old Odeh, that meant repurposing an old vehicle, piece by piece, and turning it into a home.

He converted the inside of the small bus into a bedroom and attached a small kitchen extension using corrugated steel sheets.

“It is our duty to be patient and persevere. Our expulsion will not last, no matter how long it persists,” Odeh told Mondoweiss from the bus.

“The occupation wants to expel us all. They want to take every single part of Palestine and its lands — not ‘1948’ and ‘1967’ occupied lands — they want it all to be a ‘Jewish state’. And God willing, this will not happen,” he continued.

Amid displacement and poverty, the couple has carved out small pockets of life. They fashioned fabric walls using worn tarpaulins and turned old car wheels into flowerpots now blooming with color.

Abdelsalam Odeh and his wife have been displaced for three months. (Photo: Zena al-Tahhan)

But it has not come without hardship. The structure remains exposed on one side, offering little privacy or protection. Even inside their home, his wife must remain veiled. The sweltering summer heat and the bitter chill of winter press in without restraint. Almost all their furniture, including the bus itself, was donated to them by helping hands.

“We cook on woodfire and are living a rudimentary life. There are days when we don’t have food. I don’t have any source of income,” Odeh explained. “We had to sell my wife’s wedding ring.”

Abdelsalam Odeh and his wife have been living in a bus for the past three months. (Photo: Zena al-Tahhan)

The humanitarian crisis that has gone unnoticed

Odeh’s reality reflects an unfolding humanitarian crisis in the northern occupied West Bank that is only deteriorating.

He is one of at least 42,000 Palestinians who were driven out by occupation forces from three refugee camps across the cities of Tulkarem and Jenin within the first month of Israel’s military assault, which began in late January.

Many remain stranded living in mosques, schools, and other shelters as history repeated itself with cruel precision. The Palestinians in these camps — survivors of the 1948 Nakba and their descendants — were cast into the streets overnight. Now twice-displaced, most were forced out of their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the weight of generational expulsion.

“The situation in Tulkarem is disastrous. While local and international organizations, as well as the PA, are helping, the situation has surpassed our capabilities. Tulkarem city cannot withstand this large number of displaced people,” Manal al-Hafi, Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Tulkarem, told Mondoweiss.

“There are people asking for help every day — whether for money, humanitarian aid, or food. Families have been separated, with the mother and children staying in one place and the father in another,” she continued.

According to a report published by Doctors Without Borders earlier this month, based on almost 300 interviews with displaced residents of the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, over 47 percent of respondents had inconsistent or no access to food and water. The group called for an immediate and urgent scale-up in humanitarian assistance, noting that the majority of people are relying on overstretched local communities to aid them.

‘Ashamed to complain’

While cities in the occupied West Bank are meant to be under the governance of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel has effectively reasserted direct military control over Jenin and Tulkarem for the past six months. Observers say it is the first step towards the formal annexation of the occupied West Bank amid other Israeli measures such as taking over record amounts of Palestinian land since the war on Gaza, and expelling dozens of Palestinian Bedouin villages in remote areas outside the cities. Alongside blatant acts of annexation, top government minister Bezalel Smotrich has promoted a “decisive plan” to expand illegal settlements, block Palestinian statehood, and solidify Israeli control.

The Israeli onslaught in Jenin and Tulkarem forms a part of this overall Israeli strategy of clearing Palestinian land of its inhabitants ahead of potential annexation. The Israeli campaign in the two northern West Bank cities has proven to be the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians in the West Bank since the occupation of 1967, and the longest Israeli operation in the territory since the Second Intifada in 2000.

Israeli armored vehicles and bulldozers in Jenin refugee camp, February 25, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)

Hundreds of homes have been demolished — with residents’ furniture and personal belongings still inside. They were turned into 25-meter-wide roads under the pretext of allowing Israeli forces “freedom of movement” and “operational flexibility.” The destruction has displaced thousands of families, leaving them with nothing to return to once the assault ends.

“Seventy percent of homes inside the camps are uninhabitable. Those that were not destroyed were burned, and those not burned had their foundations impacted,” said al-Hafi from the Red Crescent. “It is a smaller example of what is happening in Gaza,” she added.

Nasrallah Nasrallah, a father of four, told Mondoweiss that his home was torn down in mid-July. He still owes five years of mortgage payments to the bank for a house that no longer exists.

“I can barely make ends meet. How can I pay off my destroyed house, pay for rent, and pay to feed my children?” the 36-year-old said. “My house is now a road.”

He pointed to the massive destruction in the camp on the opposite hill, a flattened stretch of land carving straight through a block of tightly packed houses. “This is so that the occupation’s vehicles — or the PA when they take over — can pass through our camp comfortably.”

Israeli military heavy machinery demolishes a home in Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarem, June 25, 2025. (Photo: Mohammed Nasser/APA Images)

“This is not a road. This is bigger than Ben Gurion Airport. A plane can land here,” he continued.

Despite the devastation he has endured, Nasrallah — like many Palestinians — is hesitant to speak in the shadow of Israel’s horrific genocide in Gaza, only two hours away.

“I want to talk about my pain — but I hesitate. I fear I might offend the martyr resting in his grave, or the mother who buried her child. I worry that if a prisoner sees this interview, my words might feel like a complaint too small to bear,” said Nasrallah.

“Our homes are gone, but our children are with us. We have food to feed them.”

Zena al-Tahhan
Zena al-Tahhan is a freelance TV reporter and writer based in occupied Jerusalem.