West News Wire: In the wake of the Israeli military’s two-day raid on the Jenin refugee camp, which resulted in at least 12 Palestinian deaths and dozens of injuries, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reports that about 900 Palestinian homes have been damaged, with many of them becoming uninhabitable.
The UN agency’s spokesman, Adnan Abu Hasna, stated on Tuesday that his coworkers are still recording the damage done within the camp during the Israeli assault.
Resuming its services in areas like education, healthcare, and sanitation is a top priority for the UNRWA, he noted.
“The other urgent priority is to provide cash assistance to families who were displaced from their homes, and help them pay for rent and rehabilitate their residences,” Abu Hasna noted.
Last week, a group of UN experts said Israel’s military raids targeting the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the occupied West Bank “may prima facie constitute a war crime.”
“Israeli forces’ operations in the occupied West Bank, killing and seriously injuring the occupied population, destroying their homes and infrastructure, and arbitrarily displacing thousands, amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime,” the experts said in a statement.
Additionally, Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN, claimed that Israeli forces “used excessive force” during the Jenin raid.
Additionally, according to Guterres, Israeli forces have hindered aid workers from reaching individuals in need and have prohibited injured people from obtaining medical attention.
A Palestinian family was ejected from their home in the occupied Old City of al-Quds, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the State of Palestine (OHCHR).
According to the report, the development illuminates unfair coercive evictions and the looming threat of forceful transfer that affects the more than a thousand Palestinian residents of the area.
“The Ghaith-Sub Laban family was forcibly evicted from their home by Israeli police in the Old City of Jerusalem (al-Quds) early this morning. Twelve Israeli activists, seven women and five men, protesting the eviction were arrested. Concerted efforts to evict Palestinians from their homes in the Occupied East Jerusalem may amount to forcible transfer. Forcible transfer is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” Ajith Sunghay, the head of the office of OHCHR in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Tuesday.
He also said that the eviction was ordered by an Israeli court, implying that the regime’s courts were using discriminating legislation in defiance of humanitarian and human rights standards.
Sunghay emphasised that “Israel must repeal these laws that have enabled settler organisations to target Palestinians like Nora Ghaith and Mustafa Sub Laban, and end the practise of forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem.”
Israel’s attempts to uproot the Ghaith-Sub Laban family, who had resided in their home for 70 years, were denounced in a statement issued by Palestinian civil society and rights organisations towards the end of last month.
The eviction was referred to as a “forcible transfer, which constitutes both a war crime and a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.”
The statement said the ongoing expulsions of Palestinians are a “result of the international community’s deliberate failure and unwillingness to take effective and meaningful measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation, and settler-colonial apartheid regime.”
