Scenes of Devastation in Nur Shams Refugee Camp

The West Bank has been subject to growing military incursions and violence since October 7. Israeli operations have particularly escalated in recent weeks, marking the largest military presence in two decades.

In the midst of this critical situation, last Saturday Anera’s Joe Saba, chairman of the board, Sandra Rasheed, Palestine country director, and Sean Carroll, president and CEO, visited the Nur Shams Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank governorate of Tulkarem. The camp has been a focal point of military activities, experiencing 30 incursions in the past year.

During their time there they meet with the people who are now deprived of basic services. Anera is identifying how to best help restore essential services in coordination with other actors, including in healthcare, education, and livelihoods, to help restore basic dignity.

The three bore witness to scenes of “complete and utter destruction” (as Sandra observes) in the camp, with streets razed and electricity, water and sewage networks, a kindergarten, a community hall, and a youth center, along with many commercial centers and hundreds of private cars destroyed. An older disabled man with chronic illness refused coordination to flee was killed. Palestinian first responders were prevented from retrieving his body for four days.

Many families are now homeless, some of them indefinitely, as some 300 homes have been destroyed and another 1,400 badly damaged. Nonetheless, residents say (as Joe recounts), “We are staying here and this is where we’ll remain.” These are families that have been forced to flee their homes before. As Sean notes, the camp is populated primarily by “families that were displaced in 1948 from near Haifa on the coast.”

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