An Israeli court approved the demolition of 25 residential buildings in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarem despite a petition by Palestinian owners, a human rights group said Friday.
The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) said Israel's Supreme Court rejected the petition to challenge military orders for razing the 25 buildings.
The court based its ruling on classified materials submitted by state prosecutors in coordination with military intelligence that were not disclosed to the petitioners or their lawyers and deemed them sufficient to justify the demolitions, Adalah said.
The rights group said the state also acknowledged there is no pressing need to carry out the demolitions and that the area has seen no combat activity for more than a year. Despite this, the court accepted the army's argument and ruled that military commanders have broad authority in such matters and that judicial intervention is limited to exceptional cases, which it said do not apply in this case.
The court ruled that the demolition orders will not be implemented before Dec. 27, 2025, Adalah said.
During the hearings, Adalah warned that the decision would entrench forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law, arguing that the residents are protected civilians and that their property is protected under the same standards.
Adalah said this was the fourth petition it has filed in recent months against collective demolition orders in the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, all of which the Supreme Court has declined to block, citing military authority.
The Israeli army launched expanded military operations in Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank earlier this year.
Israel has intensified raids, home demolitions, displacement and settlement expansion in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, moves widely seen as laying the groundwork for formal annexation of the occupied territory.
Annexation of the West Bank would effectively end prospects for a two-state solution envisioned in multiple United Nations resolutions.
Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed at least 1,103 Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, injured nearly 11,000, and detained around 21,000 since October 2023, Palestinian figures showed.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
