The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) in London submitted a written statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

Entitled “The Impact of Israel’s Securitization Narrative on West Bank’s Refugee Camps”, the report said that since the start of 2022, Israeli military escalations on Palestinian refugee camps have been at their highest levels. Home raids, arbitrary arrests, and random gunshooting have claimed the lives of dozens of Palestinians and left scores of others with severe wounds.

“Under the self-defense and security guises, Israeli forces have significantly escalated the killing and repression of Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps and villages”, said PRC. “Israeli officials have been granting a mandate to the Israeli army to wage an unrelenting war on Palestinians who resist occupation.”

PRC warned that the authorization of the Israeli politicians for the army and security to operate with "full freedom to defeat terrorism" have paved the way for the unjustified excuse to kill and abuse Palestinian civilians at military checkpoints, demolish homes, arrest anti-occupation activists, and boost state-backed settler terrorism.

The report added that Israel’s securitization narrative, which transforms anti-occupation drives into security-related issues and matters of life or death for Israeli State, seeks to classify Palestinians as terrorists in order to legitimize occupation and delegitimize all forms of resistance.

“Refugee camps in Gaza, a narrow strip of land where some 2.3 million Palestinians live on a patch of 365 square kilometres (140 square miles), have not, themselves, been safe from Israel’s securitization discourse”, the report read. “The Israeli army has imposed restrictions on the Gaza Strip, including the closure of border crossings with the Palestinian territories.

The report concluded that Israel has always opted for dehumanization as a critical element of maintaining an occupation that by all standards of international law, humanity and justice should be sanctioned and condemned.