Israel Escalates Siege on Qalandia Refugee Camp, Pursuing Settlement Plans

"The threat her family received, alongside the practice of soldiers declaring residential houses a military command center and ordering their occupants out during incursions, has become one of the defining testimonies of a series of Israeli military incursions at Qalandia, just outside of Ramallah. Since January of this year, these invasions have escalated dramatically, and they follow a pattern that residents and analysts say cannot be separated from Israel's expanding settlement ambitions in the area surrounding the old Qalandia airport."

Iman Jahjouh, a 33-year-old widow in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah, described soldiers entering her home early during a raid. She said the soldiers told her parents to pack their things and go to a European country, claiming the land as theirs. Her daughters experienced ongoing fear, with one repeatedly asking whether they must leave and the other panicking at street sounds. Residents and analysts link the pattern of raids, including declarations of homes as military command centers and forced displacement orders, to expanding Israeli settlement ambitions around the old Qalandia airport. Since January, incursions have escalated, following earlier large-scale operations in the northern West Bank.

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