According to sources, three Arab Israelis and two Egyptians were injured after a brawl in Taba, Egypt

Palestinian residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank expressed shock and despair on Friday at the consequences of an Israeli attack on their refugee camp: bullet-riddled walls, destroyed houses and mountains of concrete blocks.

“We are a second Gaza, especially in the refugee camps,” said Nayef Alaajmeh, a resident of the Nur Shams camp in the town of Tulkarem, as he surveyed the damage following a devastating Israeli attack on the camp that ended late Thursday.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces launched a large-scale “anti-terror operation” in several cities and refugee camps in the West Bank, including Nur Shams.

According to the Israeli military and the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, at least 19 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks so far. The majority of those killed were militants.

The Israeli military first sent bulldozers to tear up the paved roads, sending a cloud of dust over the affected areas.

AFP footage showed camp residents cautiously walking through streets littered with burnt tires and other debris.

Municipal employees and residents were already busy saving what they could.

Many residents compared the devastation to that in the Gaza Strip, where large parts of the Palestinian territory have been destroyed after almost eleven months of war.

“Today we are just like Gaza, whether there is war or not… (but) we are steadfast and the people of Gaza are also steadfast,” said Nabil Abu Shala, another resident of the Nur Shams camp.

Fuad Kanuh, who runs a shop on the ground floor of the building where he lives, said gas cylinders exploded in the attack, apparently after being hit by explosive devices.

Almost everything in the store is now charred and blackened with soot, but that didn't stop Kanuh from snatching out what he could – an air conditioner and a television hanging on the wall.

The Israeli military is officially banned from entering the towns and refugee camps in the West Bank, which are autonomous zones under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

– “Pressure on the resistance” –

Nevertheless, Nur Shams was regularly the target of Israeli raids.

Members of armed groups in the camp no longer wear face masks to conceal their identities, as they consider themselves “on the road to martyrdom.”

They are often the target of Israeli armored vehicles, snipers or drones.

Since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip on October 7 following the Palestinian Hamas attack on Israel, violence in the West Bank has skyrocketed.

But even before that, the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, was regularly the scene of violence.

In the ten months leading up to October 7, the United Nations recorded 200 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, the highest number of people killed over such a long period since the United Nations began collecting data in 2005.

According to the UN, around 640 Palestinians have been killed in the area since October 7.

Although the death toll is not comparable to that in the Gaza Strip, where the Ministry of Health reports over 40,600 people, there is officially no war in the West Bank.

Three million Palestinians live in the West Bank and half a million Israeli Jews live in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.

“The occupation forces have destroyed infrastructure and vandalised roads, property and cars,” militant Abu Mohammed told AFP.

“They even destroyed and vandalized the mosque.”

At the Al-Faraa refugee camp in the nearby town of Tubas, Mohammed Mansur, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist People's Party, attended the funeral of four Palestinians killed in the Israeli attack on Wednesday.

“Here, too, they have carried out numerous massacres and bombings to put pressure on the resistance,” said Mansur.

“They want the people to turn against the resistance, but that will not happen,” he said as the bodies of those killed were buried, wrapped in Palestinian flags.

Before their burial, the bodies were carried through the camp in a funeral procession, while mourners walked through streets that had been freshly torn up by Israeli bulldozers.

As the train advanced, young men fired automatic rifles into the air.