Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2008, pages 16-17

60 Years of Al-Nakba

A Fragile Existence: Continuing Insecurity For Palestinians in Lebanon

By Isabelle Humphries

	Residents of the Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp live within the confines of a concrete military wall (Photo by Isabelle Humphries).

THE WALL of grey concrete slabs strewn with barbed wire and interspersed with checkpoints looked all too familiar. The soldiers may be more polite, and speak Arabic to residents free to come and go, but like West Bankers and Gazans, the Palestinian refugees of Ein al-Hilweh are living inside a caged canton. Home to some 80,000 Palestinians, Lebanon’s largest refugee camp is crammed into just over 300,000 square meters on the edge of the ancient city of Sidon, less than 30 miles south of Beirut. Insecurity hovers in the stifling air.

Six decades after their expulsion from their homes in Palestine, Palestinians around the world are still waiting for justice, and none more so than those living in the continuing instability of Lebanon. Last year the situation reached a boiling point once again, with the majority of the 30,000 residents of the northern camp of Nahr al Bared forced to flee fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni militia group which had infiltrated the camp. More than 40 Palestinian civilians were among the total of 400 killed, many more were injured, and houses totally destroyed or looted during the Lebanese military invasion. “Don’t ask what they stole,” one resident advised a journalist, “ask what they left.”

Residents of Ein al-Hilweh fear it will be their turn next. A small but heavily armed number of armed Sunni Islamic militia fighters reside in the camp. Unlike the Palestinian resistance of the 1970s, or today’s organized Shi’i Hezbollah, these armed Sunni militias do not offer leadership or hope for the future, but instead spread fear and insecurity. No one is sure when the events of Nahr el-Bared might be repeated in Ein al-Hilweh.

During the week of my visit, Palestinian friends didn’t feel sufficiently confident to bring a stranger to visit their home in the camp, so instead I headed to the heart of the Phoenician port of Sidon’s old city. The shady alleyways, small cafés and smell of fish shops reminded me of Acre, less than 50 miles down the coast. For the men gathered in the coffee shop owned by a family of refugees from Haifa, however, the Israeli-occupied cities of Haifa and Acre are a lifetime away.

Mahmoud Abu Hamaydeh was only a year old when his family fled Acre, abandoning their flour mill there to become refugees in Lebanon. Brought up in Bourj al-Bourajneh, Abu Hamaydeh ended up in Sidon after he was kidnapped during the Lebanese civil war (1975-90). He believes the family flour mill is now an Israeli museum. I make a note to ask Palestinian friends who still live in the Galilee.

Palestinian refugees gather in a coffee shop in Sidon (Photo by Isabelle Humphries).

Muhammad Yassin knows that his mother’s family restaurant still exists, as he managed to visit it during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Although he was only six when they fled Acre by sea, Yassin believes he recalls his childhood in the city with sharp clarity. He felt so good on his short visit that he believes he could live there even under the current circumstances. Yet the fact that he still has relatives there makes no difference—under Israeli law he will never be permitted to return. Even as we sat together on that October Saturday, the TV showed pictures from the latest stage in the ongoing Nakba for Palestinians remaining in Acre (see p. 15).

Some 400,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon, families of those who fled under attack or in fear from invading Jewish militias in 1948 Palestine. A small number managed to move to Lebanese towns and gain citizenship, but the vast majority found themselves living in poverty in the new refugee camps. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) established 17 official camps, and many other neighborhoods served as unofficial refugee camps and squatting sites.

Unemployment and poverty was widespread, and refugees were unable to move between camps without official permission. It was forbidden to extend camp boundaries to accommodate natural population growth, or to expand homes and add new floors. Palestinians in Lebanon still are barred from nearly 70 different professions, syndicates and medical associations.

During the Lebanese civil war thousands of refugees were displaced once more, and entire camps, such as Tel al-Za’tar and Nabatiyyeh, were destroyed. Facing enemies ranging from Israelis to Lebanese militias to the Syrian army, thousands of Palestinians lost their lives in massacres and battles, or were caught in the crossfire as they went about essential chores. Within days of the PLO’s 1982 exile to Tunis, hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians were slaughtered in the infamous massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

Twenty-five years later the situation remains bleak. “People have no sense of security,” explained Dr. Mahmoud el-Ali, “because there is no group or authority which can provide this leadership and security.” Having spent many years working in refugee affairs in a practical as well as an academic context, he currently is working amid the destruction in northern Lebanon.

El-Ali described how a young generation of Palestinians has grown up in a community in which Palestinians have no control over their living space, with no Palestinian political groups powerful enough to bring people together and offer a vision for the future. From 1969 to 1982, despite wartime hardships, he noted, Palestinian resistance groups improved social and living conditions in the camps. The community felt a sense of pride in its autonomy and, despite factional differences, political groups provided leadership, social cohesion and a hope for the future liberation of Palestine.

With the exile of the Palestinian resistance life was transformed—the Sabra and Shatila massacre marking a brutal beginning to a new period of vulnerability and despair. Previously, despite poverty in the community, living collectively in camps could offer a source of support and reinforce a sense of Palestinian identity—an essential element for the refugees to continue to work to struggle for their rights in the short term, and justice in the long term. Now Palestinians see these social networks and support fragmenting and disappearing.

El-Ali’s analysis was reinforced by the laments of people I met in Beirut’s Shatila camp. Far from being a shared Palestinian space where neighbors have lived together since they were villagers in Palestine, the camps have deteriorated into extended shanty towns. Moreover, today Shatila and other camps also house impoverished Lebanese and foreign workers, from Egyptians to Sri Lankans.

Despite this changing reality, however, the Lebanese government has not begun to address the poverty and social problems in what now functions as, in effect, a neglected suburb of the capital city rather than straightforwardly a Palestinian refugee camp.

In 1999 activists from different sectors of Palestinian society in Lebanon, including Dr. el-Ali, founded the AIDUN network to try to raise a grassroots voice to work for a just solution. In the wake of the Oslo process, many activists were newly inspired to speak out lest an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the Israelis be made without consulting refugees in the diaspora. “We are neither an NGO nor a political party,” explained el-Ali. “We wish to reactivate a non-partisan community voice to campaign across these boundaries.”

AIDUN is working not only to establish common ground among Palestinian groups in Lebanon, but to expand links with Palestinian and other groups internationally to campaign for a long-term political solution. The group welcomes contact and support from individuals and networks across the globe (see address below).

International financial aid is no solution for Palestinians in Lebanon (or anywhere else). Resettlement in Canada or Sweden may help individual refugees, but does not solve the core problem. Real rehabilitation will come only with a long-term political solution offering a future for Palestinians recognized as a national group. Until that time, the future in Ein al-Hilweh, in Shatila—and for all Palestinians—remains bleak.

Isabelle Humphries is completing doctoral research on internally displaced Palestinian refugees. She can be contacted at <isabellebh2004@yahoo.co.uk>.