A Palestinian group said on Monday that an unusual deployment of Israeli tanks in the occupied West Bank, part of a major offensive that has displaced tens of thousands, may be a step toward annexation.
The torn-up streets surrounding the Jenin refugee camp in the territory's north were empty on Monday, an AFP journalist reported, as three Israeli Merkava tanks stationed at higher vantage points overlooked the area.
Displaced camp residents occasionally entered through a back alley to retrieve belongings from their homes.
"We go back in to get things, whatever we can. We take the risk because we have to," said 52-year-old Ahmad al-Qahrawi.
"We had nothing when we left, no clothes, nothing. We go back to get clothes because it's cold."
Israeli leaders have repeatedly pledged to annex at least parts of the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967, but any such proposal has been met with strong opposition from Palestinians and much of the international community.
In a weeks-long military operation in the north of the territory, launched around the time a truce took hold in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces looking for have cleared three refugee camps and deployed tanks in Jenin.
Islamic Jihad said that the mass evacuations and first deployment of Israeli tanks in the territory since the early 2000s "confirms the occupation's plans to annex the West Bank by force".
The group, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza and has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, denounced "a new act of aggression" which it said was "aimed at uprooting our people from their land". AFP
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