The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a statement on Monday that the number of Palestinians Israel has displaced in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of its ongoing offensive has reached 40,000.

Dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” the ongoing Israeli military invasion overtook the northern West Bank in mid-January, leading to the forcible displacement of thousands of residents. On February 10, UNRWA said that “the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace.”

According to UNRWA, the number refers to Palestinians displaced from the Tulkarem, Jenin, and al-Far’a refugee camps, where the Israeli offensive has expanded. This marks the longest-running Israeli military campaign in the West Bank since the Second Intifada.

“Forced displacement in the occupied West Bank is the result of an increasingly dangerous and coercive environment,” the UNRWA statement said. “The use of air strikes, armoured bulldozers, controlled detonations, and advanced weaponry by the Israeli Forces has become commonplace — a spillover of the war in Gaza.”

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