Hakim Mar’i spends his days lying on a single bed, his disfigured leg raised.
asserted
leg → spend → bed
The windows of Mar’i’s dilapidated apartment, his latest temporary shelter, are covered with old blankets.
asserted
windows → cover → blankets
Unable to work, Mar’i has no money for electricity, so the blankets have to do.
asserted
blankets → work → electricity
At night, his family lives in near darkness.
asserted
family → live → darkness
The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp.
asserted
that → mark → camp
For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary.
asserted
camp → consider → Mar’i
But now, even the physical structure – their home – that tied those generations together is gone.
asserted
that → tie → generations
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asserted
flags → raise → domination
The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp.
asserted
that → mark → camp
For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary.
asserted
camp → consider → Mar’i
But generations lived there, and now, the physical structure – their home – that tied his family together over the years is gone.
asserted
that → live → years
With its debts mounting and its members facing another eviction, he said he has considered taking his life several times over the past year and a half.
asserted
he → mount → year
Mar’i cannot afford treatment for his debilitating leg injury, which has developed severe infections.
asserted
which → afford → infections
He said he sustained it while working as a labourer inside Israel in 2019.
asserted
he → say → 2019
The wound worsened after Israeli soldiers severely beat him when they forced his family from the Tulkarem camp.
asserted
they → worsen → camp
Diabetes and other untreated conditions have piled on, but he is unable to pay for the needed medical care.
asserted
he → pile → care
“This joint here is completely gone,” he said, gesturing at the swollen, blackened lower leg that prevents him from working.
asserted
that → go → him
“The medicine – by God, the medicine, I haven’t been able to get.
asserted
I → get → God
My wife and kids tell me: get out travel.
asserted
wife → tell → travel
Go to America, Turkey – so I can the medical treatment I need…
asserted
I → go → treatment
I’m a sick man.”
asserted
I → ’m → ?
His mother, Salwa, sat beside him, less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from their former four-storey home.
asserted
mother → sit → home
She wept when asked about the family home that was built floor by floor after they were first displaced in 1948 from al-Khudayra, the Arabic name for Hadera, a city in Israel.
asserted
they → weep → Israel
“We really put a lot into that house,” she said.
asserted
she → put → house
After their removal, the Israeli military razed the Mar’i home so a road traversing the now-emptied camp could be built.
uncertain
road → raze → camp
“Seeing it destroyed was really painful for us – all of us,” she said.
asserted
she → see → us
It has been more than 20 months since Israeli forces emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in a sweeping military operation in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians whose families had already been refugees for three generations.
asserted
families → empty → generations
Constantly renewed orders for a closed military zone now prevent their return.
asserted
orders → renew → return
Since January 2025, Hakim’s family has been forced to move four times.
asserted
family → force → January
First, they fled to a converted youth centre before landing in a cramped apartment with their four children, all under 15.
asserted
all → flee → 15
Unable to pay rent, the family could see the landlord’s generosity run its course as this once-temporary housing arrangement now has no end in sight.
uncertain
arrangement → pay → sight
Hakim owes money at the local shops for food he bought on credit.
asserted
he → owe → credit
Some nights, the children eat at neighbours’ houses.
asserted
children → eat → houses
I have food.
asserted
I → have → food
I have drink,” he said.
asserted
he → have → drink
Nobody is standing beside me.”
asserted
Nobody → stand → me
‘We’re already at the brink’
asserted
We → ’re → brink
The Mar’i family is among more than 33,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps by Israeli forces in early 2025.
asserted
family → remove → 2025
This is the largest single episode of forced displacement in the West Bank since Israel’s occupation began in 1967, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
uncertain
occupation → force → refugees
UN satellite imagery shows that 20 percent of all buildings across the three camps have been destroyed and another 28 percent are damaged.
asserted
percent → show → camps
…and 66 more, not listed.
The Aporia
