An Israeli military operation in Jenin has turned the West Bank refugee camp into what residents and some officials describe as a ghost town, causing destruction on a scale not seen there for over 20 years, Reuters reports.
Two weeks after the military operation began, Jenin is largely deserted. Thousands of Palestinians have left their homes, taking only what they could carry, after Israel told them to leave through drones with loudspeakers.
From a hillside overlooking the camp, little could be seen apart from clouds of smoke and soldiers moving among the blackened walls of burnt-out houses.
UNRWA, the UN Palestinian relief agency, said the demolitions in Jenin “undermine the fragile ceasefire reached in Gaza, and risk a new escalation”.
It said Jenin, a township for descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, “has been rendered a ghost town”.
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