IDF raids Palestinian refugee camp near Jerusalem, arresting 20 and taking over homes

Israeli forces have raided a Palestinian refugee camp next to Jerusalem where tensions have been growing as residents fear eviction, the military and local leaders say.

AFP journalists saw about a dozen armored military jeeps going into the Qalandiya camp, which Israeli soldiers did not allow press or residents to enter, in the West Bank.

“Security forces are operating in the Qalandiya camp area in order to thwart terror and apprehend wanted individuals,” a military official tells AFP.

COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry body in charge of civilian matters in the Palestinian territories, says in an Arabic-language statement that the large-scale operation targeted “terrorist elements, terrorist infrastructure, and the possession and trafficking of weapons.”

“We will not allow the camp to become a center of terrorism or a safe haven for terrorists and criminals, just as we do not allow this in other camps throughout Judea and Samaria,” the statement added, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Mohammad Aslan, spokesman for the committee that runs the affairs of Qalandiya camp, tells AFP that the Israeli army arrested at least 20 people and took up positions on the roofs of a number of houses inside the camp.

Footage shared by the Jerusalem Governorate, the Palestinian local authority for the region encompassing Qalandiya camp, shows alleys inside the camp blocked off by rubble and boulders to impede movement, with furniture and other property strewn across the interior of one raided house.

In 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government advanced plans for the construction of a 9,000-unit settlement on the grounds of Jerusalem’s former Atarot airport, adjacent to Qalandiya.

Palestinian residents have since voiced fear that raids and home demolitions could be tied to a strategy of eviction ahead of settlement construction, without any official word from Israeli authorities.