What they lost: Families in terror as Israel raids West Bank camps

Israel killed Essam Awad’s son. He tried to stay in the home Muhammed was raised in, but Israel forced him out.

The rain on Friday did not stop.

Nor did the pounding of Israeli soldiers on the doors of homes across Far’a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Strong winds rushed into houses as doors were knocked down, and the cold bit into the bodies of panicked, unarmed civilians forced into the streets.

In the early hours of the morning, amid an eight-day siege that had cut the camp off from the outside world, dozens of military vehicles and bulldozers rolled up to the camp’s entrance.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers poured out, swarming through the narrow alleyways. Orders shouted in Hebrew blared from speakers, overlapping with the soldiers’ commands as they banged on doors with the butts of their rifles.