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West Bank Refugee Camp Gets Foretaste of UNRWA's Demise

UN workers clean up after the Israeli raid - AFP
UN workers clean up after the Israeli raid - AFP
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West Bank Refugee Camp Gets Foretaste of UNRWA's Demise

UN workers clean up after the Israeli raid - AFP
UN workers clean up after the Israeli raid - AFP

Residents of Nur Shams camp in the occupied West Bank are fearful for their future after an Israeli raid this week damaged the UN agency for Palestinian refugees office there.

The 13,000 inhabitants of the camp near the northern city of Tulkarem depend heavily on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

UNRWA notably runs two schools, a clinic and sanitation services in Nur Shams.

Stunned refugees watched as workers cleared rubble from around the office, which was almost totally destroyed in an "anti-terrorist" operation on Thursday.

"For us, it's UNRWA or nothing," Shafiq Ahmad Jad, who runs a phone shop in the camp, told AFP.

"For the refugees... they look to UNRWA as their mother," said Hanadi Jabr Abu Taqa, an agency official in charge of the northern West Bank.

"So imagine if they lost their mother."

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini blamed the destruction on Israeli forces, saying they had "severely damaged" the office.

But the military firmly denied the accusations, telling AFP that the damage was "likely" caused by explosives planted by "terrorists".

The office will have to be relocated, "a significant investment" according to Roland Friedrich, the agency's head in the West Bank.

"The psychological impact, of course, is devastating," he added after speaking to residents on Saturday.

- 'Attack on right of return' -

From his phone shop whose facade was torn off, Jad watched as excavators removed rubble and technicians repaired communications cabling.

He said he believed the chaos was linked to the Israeli parliament's adoption late last month of a law banning "UNRWA's activities on Israeli territory".

Were the agency to disappear even from the Palestinian territories like Tulkarem, he said the streets would fill with even more rubbish and sick people would go without care.

"To want to eliminate it is to want to eliminate the Palestinian question," Jad said.

Fellow camp resident Mohammed Said Amar, in his 70s, said Israel was attacking UNRWA "for political ends, to abolish the right of return".

He was referring to the principle that Palestinians who fled the land or were expelled when Israel was created in 1948 have the right to return, as do their descendants.

He insisted that Palestinian armed groups did not use the UNRWA premises, which locals consider "sacred".

If the army destroyed the building, as he believed, this meant it always wanted to target it.

Nihaya al-Jundi fumed that daily life was paralysed after every raid and that impassable roads left residents isolated.

Nur Shams needs international organizations like UNRWA to rebuild, said Jundi, whose center for the disabled was damaged and where the wheelchair ramp collapsed.

The camp, established in the early 1950s, was long a fairly quiet, tight-knit community.

But in recent years, armed movements have taken root there against a backdrop of violence between Palestinians and Israelis, economic insecurity and no political horizons.

- 'They worry' -

Two days after the Israeli operation, the internet was still not repaired and some main roads remained an obstacle course.

UNRWA's operations have resumed, however.

"The first thing we do is that we make sure that we announce that the schools are open," said the agency's Jabr Abu Taqa.

"We know how important it is for us to bring the children to what they consider a safe haven," she added.

As she strolled through the camp, many anxious residents approached her.

One young man pointed to a ransacked barber's shop and asked: "What did he do to deserve this, the barber? He no longer has work, money. What will he do?"

Mustafa Shibah, 70, worried about his grandchildren. He turned his radio's volume all the way up during the raids -- but the little ones were not fooled.

"My granddaughter wakes up (from the raids) and bursts into tears," he said.

"They worry, they have trouble getting to school because of the (damaged) road."

For him, the threats to UNRWA are just the latest example of the suffering of Nur Shams residents who feel abandoned by Palestinians elsewhere.

"Why is it only us that have to pay while they dance in Ramallah and have a good life in Hebron?" he asked.

He said Israel "feels they can do anything" with no one to stop them.

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North Korea Boasts of ‘The World’s Strongest’ Missile, but Experts Say It’s Too Big to Use in War

A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
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North Korea Boasts of ‘The World’s Strongest’ Missile, but Experts Say It’s Too Big to Use in War

A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)
A view shows what they say is a "Hwasong-19" missile being launched at an undisclosed location in this screengrab obtained from a video released on November 1, 2024. (KRT/via Reuters TV/Handout via Reuters)

North Korea boasted Friday that the new intercontinental ballistic missile it just test-launched is "the world’s strongest," a claim seen as pure propaganda after experts assessed it as being too big to be useful in a war situation.

The ICBM launched Thursday flew higher and for a longer duration than any other weapon North Korea has tested. But foreign experts say the test failed to show North Korea has mastered some of the last remaining technological hurdles to possess functioning ICBMs that can strike the mainland US.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency identified the missile as a Hwasong-19 and called it "the world’s strongest strategic missile" and "the perfected weapon system." The official media outlet said leader Kim Jong Un observed the launch, describing it as an expression of North Korea’s resolve to respond to external threats to North Korea’s security.

The color and shape of the exhaust flames seen in North Korean state media photos of the launch suggest the missile uses preloaded solid fuel, which makes weapons more agile and harder to detect than liquid propellants that in general must be fueled beforehand.

But experts say the photos show the ICBM and its launch vehicle are both oversized, raising a serious question about their wartime mobility and survivability.

"When missiles get bigger, what happens? The vehicles get larger, too. As the transporter-erector launchers get bigger, their mobility decreases," Lee Sangmin, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

The Hwasong-19 was estimated to be at least 28 meters long (92 feet) while advanced US and Russian ICBMs are less than 20 meters long (66 feet), said Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at Seoul’s Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. He suggested that the missile's size likely helped South Korean intelligence authorities detect the launch plan in advance.

"In the event of a conflict, such an exposure makes the weapon a target of a preemptive attack by opponents so there would be a big issue of survivability," Chang said.

Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said North Korea may have developed a larger missile to carry bigger and more destructive warheads or multi-warheads. If that's the case, Lee said North Korea could have used liquid fuels as they generate higher thrust than solid fuels. He said some advanced liquid propellants can be stored in missiles for a few weeks before liftoffs.

Lee said North Korea may have placed a dummy, empty warhead on the Hwasong-19 to make it fly higher.

In recent years, North Korea has reported steady advancement in its efforts to obtain nuclear-tipped missiles. Many foreign experts believe North Korea likely has missiles that can deliver nuclear strikes on all of South Korea, but it has yet to possess nuclear missiles that can strike the mainland US.

The hurdles it has yet to overcome, according to experts, include ensuring its warheads survive the heat and stress of atmospheric reentry, improving the guidance systems for the missiles, and being able to use multiple warheads on a single missile to defeat missile defenses.

"Acquiring reentry technology is currently the most important goal in North Korea’s missile development, specifically for ICBMs, but they just keep increasing the ranges instead. This possibly suggests they still lack confidence in their reentry technology," Lee Sangmin said.

Chang said Friday's state media dispatch on the launch lacks details on the technological aspects of the Hawsong-19 and focused on publicity.

Other North Korean claims about its weapons capabilities have been met with wide outside skepticism.

In June, North Korea claimed to have tested a multiwarhead missile in the first known launch of such a weapon, but South Korea said the weapon instead blew up. In July, when North Korea said it had test-fired a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying "a super-large warhead," South Korea said the claim was an attempt to conceal a botched launch.

North Korea's missile program is still a major regional security concern, with the country openly threatening to use its nuclear missiles against its rivals. In a joint statement Thursday, the foreign ministers of South Korea, the US and Japan condemned the ICBM launch as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and said they're committed to strengthening their efforts to block North Korea's illicit revenue generation funding its missile and nuclear programs.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday it has imposed unilateral sanctions on 11 North Korean individuals and four organizations for their alleged roles in procuring missile components and generating foreign currency to fund Pyongyang’s weapons program. The sanctions are largely symbolic given that financial transactions between the Koreas have been suspended for years.

Also Friday, South Korea and the US conducted their first-ever joint live-fire exercise using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of efforts to demonstrate their readiness. South Korea’s RQ-4B "Global Hawk" reconnaissance aircraft and the US MQ-9 Reaper strike drone were mobilized for the training, according to South Korea's air force. South Korea and the US have been expanding their regular military drills to cope with North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.

Observers say that Thursday's launch, the North's first ICBM test in almost a year, was largely meant to grab American attention days before the US presidential election and respond to international condemnation over North Korea's reported dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

North Korea's reported troop dispatch highlights the expanding military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. South Korea. The US and others worry North Korea might seek high-tech, sensitive Russian technology to perfect its nuclear and missile programs in return for joining the Russian-Ukraine war.