Monday, July 02, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Driven by War to a No Man's Land in Jordan
Lives of Palestinian Refugees From Iraq Reflect Six Decades of Dispossession
By Anthony ShadidWashington Post Foreign ServiceMonday, April 2, 2007; A01
RUWEISHED, Jordan -- It was 10 a.m. when the desert winds began blowing sand into the tent, one of a gaggle perched across a moonscape along Jordan's border with Iraq. Its rickety wooden frame creaked like a decrepit rocking chair, and Samir Abdel-Rahim, stranded for the past four years in a no man's land with other Palestinians fleeing carnage in Iraq, recounted his tale.
It began in 1948, before he was born, when Israel was created. It stretched through the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when Saddam Hussein was toppled. Its denouement unfolds here, where Abdel-Rahim, 52, his wife and their four children simply wait.
"It's a long story," Abdel-Rahim said. "We're never a party to any of the wars, but we bear their consequences."
In this forlorn corner of Jordan, the border drawn as an arbitrary line in the sand, the remnants of six decades of conflict in the Middle East converge in the Ruweished camp and three others strewn along Iraq's western frontier. The camps are home to more than 1,300 Palestinians, dispossessed by conflict with Israel, driven from their homes by conflict in Iraq, and forced to wait by sometimes arbitrary politics barring their entry elsewhere. Many are the offspring of refugees from a war they are too young to know; their lives are now ordered by another that shows no sign of ending.
The magnitude of the Palestinians' plight in the camps along Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan pales before the sheer scale of Iraqis' exodus from their country, where millions have been displaced or forced to flee to neighboring countries. But it is rare in the Arab world for the lives of a handful of people to so closely chart the generations of war, dictatorship, vengeance and dispossession. By the Palestinians' own admission, their lives offer a uniquely Middle Eastern lesson in the caprice of fate.
"This is the destiny God delivered," said Abdel-Rahim's sister-in-law, Ikhlas Aziz.
The camp unfurled beyond their flimsy door, held shut by a bent nail. Colored in shades of brown, tents housing the nearly 100 Palestinians here stretched along two ribbons of ruptured black asphalt. A chain-link fence snared water bottles and plastic bags swept by gusts of wind. On this day, as on others for four years, sand, the kind that grits between the teeth, hung in the air like a morning fog.
"We're just biding our time, biding our time for something," said Abdel-Rahim's wife, Aida Qadsiya, in a black veil.
Abdel-Rahim and his family were among an estimated 35,000 Palestinians in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion. His parents had arrived in 1948, having followed the returning Iraqi army, which during that Arab-Israeli war fought in a swath of territory from the West Bank town of Jenin to Haifa on the coast.
Although Palestinians faced restrictions in Iraq that limited their access to land, cars and phone lines, they were perceived as a favored constituency under Hussein. Fashioning himself as a champion of their cause, he provided refugees free or subsidized housing and exempted them from military service. Many Iraqis resented Hussein's aid to families of suicide bombers and others killed in the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. Weeks after his fall in April 2003, landlords set out to reclaim houses that the government had rented to Palestinians, sometimes for less than $1 a month.
"If you don't leave my house, I will burn it down -- you and your family inside," Abdel-Rahim, bearded and balding, said he was told by his landlord in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hayy al-Salam.
On May 4, 2003, he left with his family and his brother's family, buying bus tickets for the equivalent of about $7.
"We didn't have a choice," he said.
For a brief time in 2003, Jordan allowed Palestinians, including Abdel-Rahim's family and a few hundred others, into the Ruweished camp, built about 40 miles from Iraq to house a feared influx of Iraqis fleeing the U.S.-led invasion. Jordan then closed the border. In summer 2006, Syria allowed more than 300 Palestinians into al-Hol camp, on its side of the frontier. Then, like Jordan, it sealed the border again.
Of Iraq's neighbors, Jordan and Syria have disproportionately shared the burden of hosting hundreds of thousands of Iraqi exiles. Despite the relatively small number of the Palestinians, U.N. officials say both countries fear the precedent that would be set by allowing in more Palestinian refugees.
"The line is drawn -- that they're not going to admit them, that they're not going to absorb one more," said Robert Breen, the representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. "If you open up for some, the rest are going to come."
The Palestinian Authority has offered the refugees sanctuary, but Israel, which controls the borders of the West Bank and Gaza, has denied U.N. requests to resettle them in the Palestinian territories, he said.
"I can't recall ever having seen this kind of situation in such a bleak environment," Breen said. "They can't go backward, and they aren't moving forward. They're literally stuck in the desert -- no way back, and nowhere to go."
It is spring in Ruweished, the season belied by the desolate environs but still weeks before the heat that residents call unbearable. Respiratory problems are rife because of the sandstorms, and on this day, nearly everyone was huddled inside their tents.
"Take a chair!" shouted Qadsiya, Abdel-Rahim's wife, as she brought out unsweetened coffee on a tray dusted with sand.
She offered a pillow to a guest seated on dirt packed as hard as concrete. Wind ruffled the tent's canvas roof and pelted the woolen blankets sewn with thick thread that served as a wall. A Koranic verse was on one flap, next to a prayer rug. A Lebanese variety show appeared on the couple's television; the satellite hookup was purchased from a Kurdish family that had been resettled. Three of their four children sat on cheap plastic mats, a single bulb overhead. Their oldest daughter, Saja, got married in the camp five months ago.
They spoke Palestinian dialect, sprinkled with Iraqi colloquialisms.
"If there were a one in a hundred chance that we could have lived safely in Baghdad, we would have never left," Abdel-Rahim said.
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has said that Shiite militias have murdered dozens of Palestinians in Baghdad and that Interior Ministry forces have arbitrarily arrested, beaten and tortured others. The group said entire communities of the 15,000 Palestinians still there have received threats of eviction. Rumors abound that Palestinians, as Sunni Muslims, have served as suicide bombers and supporters of the insurgency.
"They have been systematically brutalized," said Anita Raman, a reporting officer with UNHCR in Amman.
"You kill a Palestinian, and what is the consequence?" she added.
Virtually everyone in the Ruweished camp knows someone who was killed in Baghdad. Essam Eissa, a 49-year-old veterinarian, sat in his tent underneath a poster for Royal Jordanian Airlines. "Change is in the air," it read. He remembered when Mahmoud Bakiza left the camp and returned to Baghdad in 2004. The 24-year-old was killed 10 days later in the Baghdad neighborhood of Baya. Mohammed Ziab, sitting in his tent and wheezing in the sandstorm, remembered another camp resident who returned to Iraq in 2003.
"I heard he was killed two days later," Ziab said.
In Abdel-Rahim's tent, his wife recalled the fate of her brother, Marwan Lutfi. Members of a Shiite militia, wearing police uniforms, entered his tailor shop on Baghdad's storied Rashid Street in April 2006, she said. His co-workers told her that the militiamen asked him to come with them for 15 minutes. "He walked with them," she said. For a moment, she was silent, tears welling in her eyes. "He never returned."
Four days later, her brother's body was found in the street, covered in acid burns, she said. He had been shot 21 times.
"My mother couldn't look at the body," she said. "Only the gravediggers did."
"I have to endure the circumstances here, but at least it's not Baghdad," Abdel-Rahim said, nodding.
As he spoke, his brother, Khalid, turned angry. It was the bravado of desperation. "I'd forget anything that's called Arab, anything that's called Islam, if I could find a place, anyplace in the world, for my children, with a safe future!" he shouted.
The others were taken aback by what they considered his blasphemy.
His brother wagged his finger.
"There is no god but God," his wife yelled.
Camp residents navigate the monotony with conversation, backgammon and cards. Routine is supplied by the United Nations, which delivers water daily, bread and vegetables every other day and rice, sugar, canned food, cooking oil and toiletries twice a week. Rumors swirl. "Every day there's a new one," said Abdel-Rahim's sister-in-law, Aziz.
This week, it was that American officials planned to visit and offer asylum. Before that, it was that the Canadian government, which had accepted 53 of the Palestinian refugees last year, planned to return. Abdel-Rahim had applied to go to Canada. He pulled out the letter he had received from the Canadian Embassy.
"You have not provided sufficient evidence that you have a well-founded fear of persecution nor that you have been and continue to be seriously and personally affected by civil war, armed conflict or massive violation of human rights," it read in part.
The last line concluded: "I am therefore refusing your application."
"I would have to die, my husband would have to be killed, or my children would have to be slaughtered in front of my eyes, so that I'd have the right to leave this place," his sister-in-law said. "Is that logical?"
By afternoon, the winds had subsided, and the family ventured outside, walking a little gingerly past some of the 10 cats that share their tent. A few other people were also tentatively opening their doors.
"If you look at the records, I've been here four years, but to be honest, it feels like 400 years," Abdel-Rahim said.
"We're here in a prison without committing a crime," his sister-in-law said.
Everyone shook their heads in agreement.
"But even a criminal knows the length of his sentence," his brother Khalid added.
Abdel-Rahim looked at him. He spoke without pity, almost clinically. "Our crime is that we're Palestinian," he said.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Conference on Palestinian Refugees and International Law
Course Venue: Department of International Development (QEH), Mansfield Road, Oxford
Course Fee: £140 (including course materials and refreshments), (There is a limited number of places for students at a reduced fee of £70).
This two-day workshop places the Palestinian refugee case study within the broader context of the international human rights regime. It examines, within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions, participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary debates in the human rights movement and analyse the specific context of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza and Israel) in light of the debates.
The workshop commences with the background of the Palestinian refugee crisis, with special attention to the socio-political context and legal status of Palestinian refugees in the region. This is followed by a careful examination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including its philosophical underpinnings. The key themes, which have taken centre stage in the debate on the Palestinian refugee crisis, are statelessness, right of return, repatriation, self-determination, restitution compensation and protection. These themes are critically examined along with current discussions about the respective roles of UNRWA, UNHCR and the UNCCP in the Palestinian refugee case.
Instructors:
Dr Dawn Chatty, Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford, is Deputy Director of the Refugee Studies Centre. She has conducted extensive research among Palestinians and other forced migrants in the Middle East. Her book (edited with Gillian Lewando Hundt), Children of Palestine: Experiencing Forced Migration in the Middle East has recently been published by Berghahn Press (2005)
Ms Leila Hilal is currently a legal adviser on refugees at the Palestinian Negotiations Support Unit in Ramallah, West Bank. She practiced as a litigation attorney for a class action law firm in New York City and served as a law clerk with the South African Constitution Court. She obtained her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the State University of New York at Buffalo and Masters of Law (LL.M) from Harvard University in the United States. Her legal studies focused on public international law, with particular emphasis on international human rights law.
Ms Lena El-Malak is a doctoral student in Public International Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is currently writing a thesis on Resolving Property Claims for Refugees Following Displacement: A legal analysis of Palestinian refugees’ rights to reparations’. Lena has worked as a Durable Solutions Assistant at UNHCR in Amman on cases involving Palestinian refugees and as an intern at UNHCR in Cairo. She is a member of the Massachusetts State Bar.
For further information, contact:Dominique Attala Refugee Studies Centre Department of International Development Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TBEmail: rscmst@qeh.ox.ac.uk Website: http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk
Lebanon: Palestinian factions clash
Rival Palestinian factions clashed in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Monday, shaking the camp with explosions and wounding at least two gunmen, officials at the camp said. Lebanon's state-run news agency said as many as five were wounded in the battle.
The gunbattle between Fatah Islam and Fatah Uprising started after an argument between members of the two groups in the Nahr al-Bared camp near the northern city of Tripoli, said Palestinian officials in the camp.
The fighting lasted less than 30 minutes, wounding a fighter from each group, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The Fatah Islam member was seriously wounded.
State-run National News Agency said the clashes left at least five people wounded, two of them members of Fatah Islam. It added that officials of Palestinian factions were holding meetings to try end the tension.
But within several hours, clashes resumed in the evening. Residents said they could hear explosions, though the cause was not known.
The situation has been tense in the camp, which is home to about 30,000 Palestinians, since Lebanon's Interior Minister Hassan Sabei announced last week the arrests of four Syrian members of the little-known Fatah Islam group — an offshoot of the Damascus-based Palestinian Fatah Uprising.
Sabei said those arrested had confessed to being behind the Feb. 13 bombings of two buses northeast of Beirut that killed three people and wounded 20.
Hours after Sabei's announcement, Lebanese troops took security measures around the camp setting up checkpoints and searching every vehicle leaving or entering the area.
Sabei also blamed Syria's intelligence agency in the bombings and claimed that Fatah Islam's alleged split from the Damascus-based group was a cover and that the two were essentially the same.
Fatah Islam reportedly split last year from Fatah Uprising, itself a 1980s splinter of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah party.
Fatah Islam denied Sabei's bombings charges, as did Fatah Uprising and the Syrian government.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Al-Tanf: No man's land school opens
The United Nations has opened a tented school for some 90 Palestinian refugee children in the no-man's land between Iraq and Syria.The children are among 354 Palestinians who have been stranded at the border for nine months since fleeing sectarian violence in Iraq.
The school's eight teachers are drawn from among the refugees themselves and underwent a week-long training course in Damascus last month, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said.
The refugees at the al-Tanaf camp, one of a number along the Syria-Iraq border, "fled Baghdad under difficult conditions and have experienced serious human rights abuses against them", a statement said."International support is needed to find a solution for Palestinians from Iraq. They are facing a harsh winter in the desert," UNRWA's Syria director Panos Moumtzis said.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Lebanon: Fatah leader vows Palestinians will stay out of conflict
BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are determined not to be dragged into the confrontation between the opposition and the government, the head of the Palestinian group Fatah in Lebanon said on Thursday. "No one can drag Palestinians [into the conflict]. We are not at the service of any party," Sultan Abu al-Aynayn told reporters after meeting Lebanese foreign ministry officials."We are keeping an equal distance from everyone."
After four people were killed in mainly Muslim neighborhoods during riots involving opposition and government supporters on January 25, some Lebanese newspapers reported that foreign gunmen had been arrested, including at least one Palestinian. Officials did not confirm the reports, however."I demand that all the political forces in Lebanon and that security services show us proof that one Palestinian is implicated in internal matters," Abu al-Aynayn said.
Abu al-Aynayn also met on Thursday with the vice president of the Higher Shiite Council, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan.He said afterward that the Palestine Liberation Organization, with all its factions, called on the Lebanese to reunite in order to "save their country."Commenting on the situation in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp and the nearby Taamir neighborhood, Abu al-Aynayn said the Taamir's follow-up committee and the Lebanese Army were working to restore stability in the region.He also praised the stands of Army Commander General Michel Suleiman regarding his efforts to avoid clashes between the Lebanese and Palestinians.For the first time in three decades, the army entered Taamir last week. The neighborhood is located on the outskirts of Ain al-Hilweh.Fugitives wanted by Lebanese authorities - who use the area, a virtual security vacuum, as a safe haven - see the army's deployment as a threat to their sustained presence in the neighborhood.
As the army attempted to deploy in the tumultuous neighborhood last week, Jund al-Sham militants fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the advancing army troops, which prompted the army to fire back in an exchange that lasted for about ten minutes.Around 400,000 Palestinian refugees are believed to live in Lebanon, with more than half residing in 12 refugee camps scattered throughout the country. - The Daily Star
Lebanon: Fatah leader vows Palestinians will stay out of conflict
BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are determined not to be dragged into the confrontation between the opposition and the government, the head of the Palestinian group Fatah in Lebanon said on Thursday. "No one can drag Palestinians [into the conflict]. We are not at the service of any party," Sultan Abu al-Aynayn told reporters after meeting Lebanese foreign ministry officials."We are keeping an equal distance from everyone."
After four people were killed in mainly Muslim neighborhoods during riots involving opposition and government supporters on January 25, some Lebanese newspapers reported that foreign gunmen had been arrested, including at least one Palestinian. Officials did not confirm the reports, however."I demand that all the political forces in Lebanon and that security services show us proof that one Palestinian is implicated in internal matters," Abu al-Aynayn said.
Abu al-Aynayn also met on Thursday with the vice president of the Higher Shiite Council, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan.He said afterward that the Palestine Liberation Organization, with all its factions, called on the Lebanese to reunite in order to "save their country."Commenting on the situation in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp and the nearby Taamir neighborhood, Abu al-Aynayn said the Taamir's follow-up committee and the Lebanese Army were working to restore stability in the region.He also praised the stands of Army Commander General Michel Suleiman regarding his efforts to avoid clashes between the Lebanese and Palestinians.For the first time in three decades, the army entered Taamir last week. The neighborhood is located on the outskirts of Ain al-Hilweh.Fugitives wanted by Lebanese authorities - who use the area, a virtual security vacuum, as a safe haven - see the army's deployment as a threat to their sustained presence in the neighborhood.
As the army attempted to deploy in the tumultuous neighborhood last week, Jund al-Sham militants fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the advancing army troops, which prompted the army to fire back in an exchange that lasted for about ten minutes.Around 400,000 Palestinian refugees are believed to live in Lebanon, with more than half residing in 12 refugee camps scattered throughout the country. - The Daily Star
Monday, January 22, 2007
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon hope for better life
Friday, January 19, 2007
The Illusion of Return

The Illusion of Return
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Halban Publishers (11 Jan 2007)
Intriging and tragic - 2 Palestinian friends meet at Heathrow and remember their last night in Lebanon before tragedy struck SynopsisAfter 17 years, the narrator and his friend, Ali, meet at Heathrow and slowly remember their past in Lebanon. Their memories are concentrated on one fatal night when they were with two other friends for the last time, before tragedy struck. But for the narrator, a personal tragedy had occurred much earlier... Both the narrator and Ali are Palestinians born in Lebanon. Like many others, they had to leave in the mid-1980s, when it became a battleground for local armies - Ali to America, the narrator to London. But this is not just a story about suffering, it is also about absurd politics and violence - about a world where tragedy and comedy co-exist. A poignant story that lingers long after one has finished it.

