# right of return

From Return to Ruins: How West Bank Refugees’ Smallest Right — to Go Home — Has Been Shrunk to a Van and a Promise

Israeli military operations in West Bank refugee camps since January last year have displaced over 40,000 Palestinians, with at least 850 buildings destroyed in Nur Shams, Jenin and Tulkarm by the end of 2025. For many refugees the once-grand political demand of a return to ancestral lands has been hollowed out into a basic plea: permission to return to the makeshift homes inside the camps. The demolitions carry acute humanitarian costs and broader political consequences, potentially entrenching dispossession and complicating any prospects for a negotiated settlement.