ISRAEL may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity when it forcibly expelled 32,000 Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said today.

In a report, the group calls for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz to be investigated for war crimes and prosecuted if found responsible.

While much of the world focused on the Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, the country’s military raided refugee camps in the north of the West Bank and expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in January and February. 

The operation amounted to the largest ever displacement in the territory since Israel captured it in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel has said its troops will stay in some camps for a year. It is not clear when, if ever, Palestinians will be able to return. In the meantime, thousands are living wherever they can find shelter.

Israel, which called the raids Operation Iron Wall, said they were needed to stamp out armed resistance after Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack. But months later, thousands of Palestinians remain unable to reach their homes, while other dwellings have been bulldozed by Israeli forces.

“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted,” said Human Rights Watch senior refugee and migrant rights researcher Nadia Hardman.

The group said that, during the operation, troops were “storming homes, ransacking properties, interrogating residents” before displacing them from their homes.

Meanwhile in Gaza, a pair of Israeli strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least five people early today, according to hospital officials, bringing the death toll from air strikes in the Palestinian territory over a roughly 12-hour period to 33. 

The strikes have been some of the deadliest since October 10,when a ceasefire supposedly came into force.

Following the US-backed plan for peace in Gaza receiving approval from the United Nations security council on Monday, over 60 delegations met in Brussels today to discuss reconstruction, governance and security in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and reform of the Palestinian Authority.

France and Saudi Arabia are chairing a meeting of the Palestine Donors Group, focusing on changes to the Palestinian Authority called for by the peace plan.