Israeli bulldozers began demolishing 25 buildings housing Palestinians in a refugee camp on Wednesday, in what the military said was an effort to root out armed groups in northern areas of the occupied West Bank.
The buildings, home to some 100 families, are in the Nur Shams camp, a frequent site of clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli forces.
Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through the structures early Wednesday, sending thick plumes of dust into the air, an AFP journalist reported. Many residents watched from a distance.
The military said the demolitions were part of an operation against gunmen.
"Following ongoing counterterrorism activity by Israeli security forces in the area of Nur Shams in northern Samaria, the commander of the Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, ordered the demolition of several structures due to a clear and necessary operational need," the military told AFP in a statement.
"Areas in northern Samaria have become a significant center of terrorist activity, operating from within densely populated civilian areas."
Earlier this year, the military launched an operation it said was aimed at dismantling Palestinian armed groups from camps in northern West Bank -- including Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin.
"Even a year after the beginning of military operations in the area, forces continue to locate ammunition, weapons, and explosive devices used by terrorist organizations, which endanger soldiers and impair operational freedom of action," the military said on Wednesday.
Earlier in December, AFP reported residents of the targeted buildings retrieving their belongings, with many saying they had nowhere to go.
The demolitions form part of a broader Israeli strategy aimed at easing access for military vehicles within the densely built refugee camps of the West Bank.
Israel has occupied the Palestinian territory since 1967.
Nur Shams, along with other refugee camps in the West Bank, was established after the creation of Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in what is now Israel.
With time, the camps they established inside the West Bank became dense neighborhoods not under their adjacent cities' authority. Residents pass on their refugee status from one generation to the next.
Many residents believe Israel is seeking to destroy the idea of the camps themselves, turning them into regular neighborhoods of the cities they flank, in order to eliminate the refugee issue.
