This is a journey with a beginning, but no end in sight yet and one that may prove to be amongst history’s longest episodes… This is the story of the Palestinians displaced from their homes since 1948, to the homeland’s refugee camps or those of the diaspora.
Those inside Palestine remain victims of daily campaigns of killing and repression. Such is the fate of the Palestinians of Al-Am’ari Camp in Ramallah city. From the district of al-Lid, ar-Ramla, and Java, as this geographical strip is referred to in Palestine, come the camp’s refugees.
Hajj Abu Muhammad speaks of his exile in 1948:” Everyone fled to areas close to their hometowns and villages… Northerners made for Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, or Lebanon, while we of the midlands -al-Lidd and neighbouring towns- ended up in Ramallah, the nearest refuge point.” He continues: “We arrived at the city in 1948…The Red Cross was in charge of the camps then, since UNRWA had only been founded after 1950…The camp was not in its present state at the time, the Red Cross handed each head of household tents that varied in size in accordance with the size of his family… large tents for large families and smaller ones for smaller families…We stayed in tents for six consecutive years, until 1954… Our condition was no better after the tents were pulled down… all we were given was a number of wooden sheets and some banana tree branches from Jericho… These formed the foundation stone of our future homes, which we built using mud… Later on, a single contribution was made by the agency that came in the shape of a few more pieces of wood.
In an area of 93 acres sit those tiny cubes that continue to grow vertically, since no extension has been made to the original plot of land, in spite of the enormous rise in the camp’s population, which has recently been estimated at seven thousand. One cannot help wondering as to what kind of future awaits the camp’s young generations, or those living in similar conditions in other refugee camps across the homeland. The camp administrator, Mr. Ghalib al-Biss says: “We are on our way to a veritable demographic catastrophe… Before, the problem was resolved through erecting new floors on top of existing buildings… With every adult son the family home would rise higher and higher, so that we only have three and four storey- buildings in the camp… The fact that a number of young men left the camp and settled inside Ramallah city helped alleviate the crisis… Now, this has become well nigh impossible with the unbearable rises in land prices and flat rental rates… No young man can afford such living costs… In the seventies the average cost of an acre of land in Ramallah suburbs was 2000 Jordanian dinars approximately, while apartments were let at a monthly rental cost of five dinars. Today, the acre of land is sold at thousands of dinars and the average monthly rental rate is 200 dinars approx. Accordingly, the people of the camp who number 7000 persons have been condemned to remain in the camp forever… Only 300 families have succeeded to leave the camp, since its founding, and settle in Ramallah suburbs…
In an office containing nothing but a single computer and a few worn out pieces of furniture, the camp administrator Mr Ghalib al-Biss sits with his staff, amidst increasing reductions in the Agency’s general budget in recent years. These have sharply affected the services offered by the Agency in primary education, health care and social assistance.
Only two schools are to be found in the camp, one for girls, the other a boys’ school. Children are taught up to year 9, after which they spread across Ramallah’s secondary schools. The 2,500 pupils taught in the two schools, are distributed across tiny classrooms, at an average of 40-50 per classroom, deprived of the most fundamental necessities in school equipment. Initially, the Agency used to provide pupils with a gratuitous school kit. Now, the family has to pay a given sum of money –albeit a modest one- for every one of its children at school, as well as providing them with all their school kit, without any outside assistance whatsoever. Even extensions to the actual school building are made using donations from the families, who have had to fund the construction of 6 new classrooms to accommodate the ever- growing young population of the camp.
The camp fares no better in health care. A single surgery caters for the entire population’s health needs. At first, one general practitioner used to work at the surgery. Following continuous complaints from the camp’s residents, a different specialist was made to visit the surgery in accordance with a set schedule every week. The gynecologist holds surgery on Wednesday, the osteologist the following week and so on… Just as in education, budget reductions have resulted in fees being introduced in exchange for services. Before, patients used to be transferred to hospital for treatment free of charge, in accordance with an agreement between the Agency and al-Matla’ Hospital in Jerusalem that meant that the camp family doctor was able to transfer his patients directly to hospital for treatment.
Today, the destitute patient has to pay 140 Shekel ($35) to be transferred to hospital and complete the intensely complicated bureaucratic transfer procedures, as well as covering a quarter of the entire treatment cost. Given that most patients lack a stable source of income, this development has proven to be an unbearable new burden for the impoverished refugees. The condition of Hajj Abu Zirr serves as a clear example of the crushing weight the introduction of hospital fees has meant for the camp’s refugees.
The camp administrator relates that Hajj Abu Zirr has for six years been struggling to collect the sum of $10,000 to have a lung transplant. The camp residents have covered a part of the sum through their donations. The fate of Hajj Abu Zirr is one of many inside the camp, who might meet their deaths before collecting the cost of their medicines and surgeries. The Palestinian Authority flees its responsibilities towards these refugees under the pretext that they fall under the Agency’s jurisdiction and are thus not covered by the health ministry. This has led many to ask: “Are we not Palestinians like the rest of you?”
Al Am’ari Camp, like all other sectors of Palestinian society, suffers from unemployment proliferation within its ranks. With the exception of a small group of civil servants, the vast majority of the work force struggles under the grip of unemployment. These range from workers who daily poured unto 1948 occupied Palestine before being barred from entry there with the eruption of al-Aqsa Uprising, craftsmen and labourers who worked inside Ramallah’s workshops and factories that were made redundant due to closures and the stifling economic crisis, to day labourers who lost their only source of income due to curfews and road closures.
The children of the camp use narrow streets as their only playground after being deprived of their most elementary rights. No gardens, play centres, or clubs are to be found in the tiny, impoverished camps. Abu Wa’il, a parent, says: “our children know no joy except on the two days of Eid when they enjoy a few rides at the fun fare”. Ramallah is one of the few cities that boast of such an attraction. Since no such luxury is to be found in most Palestinian cities, streets and narrow alleys are the children’s only refuge. The youth of the camp fare no better.
The camp contains a single modest youth club and a centre for the welfare of disabled youth that caters for 150 young men and women. The recent years have also witnessed the emergence of promising initiatives pioneered by a group of residents, who founded a number of community clubs each representing the families, cities and villages of origin, such as al-Lidd Association whose members had lived in al-Lidd before being driven out, the ‘Annaba society, an-Na’ma people Association, which is currently under development. All these different associations are subsumed under the umbrella of al-Am’ari Charity Association.
The families maintain that these clubs and associations have relieved many of the residents’ social problems, intervened in a number of local disputes and served to strengthen the social bond between refugee children, ensuring that they remain attached to their home towns and committed to their right to return.
West Bank and Gaza camps have incurred the largest losses in the blessed uprising. Official statistics indicate that as much as half of those martyred or wounded during the recent Intifada come from refugee camps. The total number of martyrs from al-Am’ari camp has, since April 2000, reached 14, while the wounded are estimated at a 100.
No figure has yet been given for those currently detained in Zionist jails, but their number is mounting daily. Reflecting over al-Am’ari camp martyrs, one cannot help recalling the 4th of April 2002, when Apache helicopters stationed at the neighbouring Psegot colony targeted with a number of missiles a car containing Sheikh Hussein Kwaik, killing his wife Bushra, aged 37, and his children ‘Azeeza (15), Baraa’ (14) and Muhammad (8), when Sheikh Abu Kwaik was not even inside the car at the time. An entire family is exterminated.
The justification: a technical error. Sheikh Kwaik whom the Zionists purported to have targeted on the ground that he acted as the head of Hamas military wing, is currently detained in an-Naqab Prison. After a thorough investigation, Zionist intelligence services were unable to establish a single charge against him. This serves to lay bare the fake accusations fabricated against Palestinian activists to facilitate their executions.
In another assassination operation against a Palestinian activist, two children from al-Am’ari camp were blown to pieces as they passed near the car targeted by Zionist missiles. The murdered children were ‘Arafat Ibrahim al-Misri (16 years old) and his five year old sister Shaymaa’.
The Psegot colony, constructed atop at-Tawil Mountain overlooking al-Am’ari Camp represents a nightmare to the camp’s residents. In virtue of its geographic location, the camp is continuously targeted by Zionist soldiers’ gunfire and missiles for no reason whatsoever, particularly during Zionist incursions into Palestinian cities, which have so far devastated over a 100 homes. Residents live in a continuous state of fear.
One of the many missiles randomly fired from the colony at the camp has once landed on the roof of Mr. ‘Abd al-Fuleel, but did not explode, saving the residents of the tightly packed building from certain death, in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
“We will no doubt return to our villages, if not we, then our children”, says Mr. Ghalib al-Biss amidst a number of camp dignitaries who insist that their cause would never die, notwithstanding the manipulation of politicians. “The people is alive and will impose its agenda on everyone until it is granted its full rights” maintained. Mr. Ghalib. His words reminded me of a conversation I had with a Zionist intelligence officer at the Julma Prison, regarding final settlement negotiations. The officer said: “I took part in the 1982 war in Lebanon.
Once I stopped a 17 year old man and asked: “Where did you come from?” He answered, “I am From ‘Akka.” The officer continued: “In the young man’s eyes I saw that he understood nothing except that he came from ‘Akka, although he was 17, born in Lebanon, and had never seen ‘Akka.
I am certain that even if he were to be given a million dollars, in exchange for forgetting ‘Akka, he would never forget… There could never be any real peace between us and you…”
