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     Fara’a camp is a Palestinian refugee camp, established in 1949 after the Israeli occupation of Historic Palestine. Its population is about 7542 persons; they have a special status, internationally recognized, as refugees; they are not like all other Palestinians living in the West Bank or in Gaza; they are not regular Palestinian residents of a village or city: the camp was created specially for them; they don’t feel as though they belong to the place where they live; they do not vote in the municipality’s election, even if formally they are registered as Jenin residents. They formed a special group of people with particular interests and political aims; further than the political participation against the Israeli occupation, they have their own political struggle, common to all the Palestinian refugees: they want to return to their original places in Historic Palestine.

 

Details about Fara’a camp:                                                                              (top)

Fara’a camp extends on 225 dunums of land, with a population density of 35 sqm per person. This land has been leasing from a Toubas family, Abd Al Hadi family, by the Jordan Government until 1950, when UNRWA replaced it (an agreement states that the land will be leased not more than 99 years). Since 1998, the camp is under the Palestinian National Authority administration[1]; officially, most of the camp residents belong to the Jenin Governorate but, in reality, the municipality is not responsible for them: UNRWA is their only representative.

80% of them are originally from the northern coastal area of the Historic/Pre-48 Palestine, mainly from Haifa region. The camp was established as a consequence of the fleeing of Palestinians from their home. They were forced to leave their villages by the Israeli army, who occupied part of the Historic Palestine during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

Fara’a camp’s location was chosen by a committee of Palestinian refugees, organised by the International Red Cross; they decided for this land because of the proximity of Fara’a water spring and since here the life conditions were similar to their original villages. Most of the population was composed of landowners and farmers from 81 different villages and cities, according to UNRWA datas.

 

Tab. 1: Places of origin of Fara’a camp residents:                                            (top)

 

Haifa region	Al Rehaneyeh	Al Kafrain	Subbarin,	Um Ezzenat	Qanneer	Khubbezeh	Al Sharkas
Yaffa region	Abu Kishk	Al Sawalmeh	Seedna Ali	Al Burj	Byar Adas
Gaza region	Al Faluja	Beilin	Al Jaladeyeh
Tulkarem region	Qaqun	Wod el Hawareth
Al Ramla region	Shahmeh	Al Tineh	al Majdal

 

Historical events:                                                                                          (top)

”750 thousand Arabs were removed, while less than 100 thousand remained. Hundreds of villages were razed after the war, and on their sites new Jewish villages were built. Entire Arab neighborhoods in the towns were emptied, and new Jewish immigrants replaced the former inhabitants. Conquest and expulsion went together. In short: ethnic cleansing”.

Uri Avnery, June 19, 2006

       Palestinians remember this tragic event as Nakba- catastrophe or cataclysm in Arabic. From September 1947 to January 1948, almost 726,000 Palestinian inhabitants assisted to the destructions of their villages and cities and escaped in order to find shelters for them and their families. The countries to which the refugees fled were Jordan (including the West Bank), Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip (administered by Egypt). Some refugees reached their families and settled with them in villages and cities, while several humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross, the American Quakers’ Committee, and the League of Red Cross Societies provided a temporary accommodation for those who did not have alternatives.

The first period for them was very difficult; they had to move from a place to another until they found a suitable accommodation. According to an elderly Fara’a camp resident’s account, for instance, his family fled from Al Faluja, due to the fear of Israeli atrocities happening around his village. At first, they moved to the north of Hebron, but the harsh of the winter forced them to go to Jericho, where a big camp had been arranged by the Jordan government. His family spent eight years this way, living in tents and wandering between Hebron and Jericho camps, until they decided to reach some relatives, already settled in Fara’a camp.

The International Red Cross had the duty of taking care of them, in coordination with the Jordan government until 1950. Afterward, as the probability of finding a durable solution in a short time was very remote, the United Nations created a specific organism for the Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), established according to resolution 302(4) in 8 December 1949. Its scope was providing the normal relief programmes, which involves ration distribution, social welfare, housing, health, and general education. The agency possesses no authority, no legislative power, and no jurisdiction over the refugees in its care; it was established for a short term mandate[2], until a suitable solution could be found for the refugees. They are still waiting.

After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, refugees had to deal directly with who provoke their exodus. In Fara’a camp, the population diminished by a third; many scattered to Jordan, becoming refugees for the second time. The others remained in the camp, and began a new phase under the Israeli occupation. The Jordan government was replaced by the new occupying State of Israel.

The political participation of the population of refugee camps was always very high, before 1967 as well as in both of the Intifadas; they participated in political demonstrations from 1951 till now, resisted the Israeli occupation, and played a significant role in PLO activities. 

 Palestinian Refugees                                                                                      (top)

According to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugee, a refugee is defined as a person outside of his or her country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. This definition does not cover the Palestinian refugees, as it excludes those persons who are receiving protection or assistance from organs or agencies of United Nations other than UNHCR. 

Indeed, Palestinian refugees are under UNRWA regulations, which state that Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict […] UNRWA’s definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948”. They represent the largest single refugee group of the world. 

The difference between a refugee and an immigrant is that an immigrant chooses to go to another land whereas a refugee is driven from his or her homeland and cannot safely return. Refugees are among the world’s most disadvantaged people. They do not voluntarily leave their homes seeking economic opportunity in another land; they flee because they want to stay alive.

Moreover, the situation is even worse for Palestinian refugees, as their land is still occupied by the State of Israel, which has been denying their right of return as enshrined in UN Resolution 242 for 58 years.

 

 

Palestinian Refugees’ Identity                                                                     (top)

Palestinian refugees’ cultural identity is built on collective memory; the families stories are continuously handed down from generation to generation; even if not all of them were able to visit their village, most can describe it accurately, as these are built in their memories. They have a sincere tie to their ancestors’ houses and lands. In Fara’a camp, for instance, many have kept the documents of their houses and their land possessions; they still have the keys to their homes, which no longer exist.

Their identities can be considered as made up of two components: one positive and one negative. The former is being the son of a certain place which no longer exists: “I’m from there”. The latter is the self-concept and other people’s concept of what is a refugee, a foreigner who doesn’t belong to the place: “I am not from here”.

Israel’s main aim was to destroy the positive component of the refugee’s identity to cut their bonds with the original villages. So, the State erased the name of the Arab villages from the maps, took the refugee issue off from the school curriculum and, eventually, destroyed many of those villages. Nevertheless, thanks to the constant work of remembering, the dualistic nature of refugees’ identity is still strong among the old generations. Among the young people, however, although they definitely affirm “I’m come from Al Kafrain” or any other original village, it is easy to find more realistic views about the future they will live: they are not so expectant to return to their villages as their grandparents are. Nonetheless, the negative component still strongly pervades their personalities, pushing them to leave the camp: “I want to go back, but not in Al Kafrain; I would like to go to Haifa; my village doesn’t exist anymore. There is an Israeli military camp there, now”, S., 23 years old, from Fara’a camp.

Refugees’ existences—of younger and older generations—are very conflicted: they don’t belong to the place where they live, but neither to the place that is still alive only in their memories.

 

The camp organization:                                                                           (top)

Usually, within refugee camps there are two main actors which substitute the Municipality’s functions: UNRWA and the Popular Committee. In Fara’a camp, for instance, UNRWA provides financial support, while the Popular Committee manages the projects on the behalf of the Agency.

 

UNRWA:                                                                                                        (top)

Since its creation, the UN agency has been supplying the people of the camp with food ration distribution, social welfare, housing, health, and general education. UNRWA failed in making refugees independent from the relief and services it was providing; now, it is severely reducing its services, leaving the residents of the camp without other resources.

• Ration Distribution: this consists of the basic food needs, as flour, rice, wheat, oil and sugar. At first, all the residents of the camp were receiving food relief at least four times a year. Now, the list of receveing families is much shorter and the relief is delivered very rarely.
• Housing: in the beginning, refugees were living in tents, whose dimension was related to the number of family members. In 1952, finally, UNRWA erected cement blocks, with walls of 10 cm thick; around 10 people or more had to share a four square meter shelter. Some families were able to enlarge their homes when their economic situation improved, breaking UNRWA rules which state that the houses cannot be more than three floors. Now, they suffer for lack of space inside the camp both for the old buildings’ extension and new buildings’ construction (the area of the camp is fixed according to UNRWA statement). For this reason, camp residents complain for the overcrowded condition in which they live; children of the camp don’t know where to play and having some privacy is impossible: “everybody can listen to you while you are sitting and speaking in your house”, D. 17 years old, from Fara’a camp.
• Social welfare: the on going social projects are two, the “Emergency cases” and the “Special Family Cases”. The former consists of assuring a three month period job for families in need (at present, 82 families are involved in it). The latter provides monthly financial aid to no-income families. A.’s family, for instance, was included in the Special Cases program; they are 8 children and their father died many years ago. A. is the elder brother, and when he finished his studies, UNRWA cut off his family from the program as he could finally become his family’s breadwinner. Because he was not able to find a job, they are without any income.  
• Health: in the camp there is a Health center, open just during the morning, where people can go for basic care. The closest hospital is in Nablus, but due to the closures and checkpoints, Fara’a residents cannot easily reach it. Before the health services in the hospital were free of charge, now the patients from the camp have to pay most of them.
• Education: there are three UNRWA primary schools in the camp (two for girls and one for boys); the students have to go to Toubas for the secondary school; often they have problems reaching it because of the Israeli closures as well as economic problems (some families don’t have even enough money for transportation). They have difficulties studying mainly for lack of space in their houses.

 

The Popular Committee:                                                                              (top)      

In the beginning, the Popular Committee was created to take care of the utilities. It consists of several members of the political parties present in the camp and it is still linked to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation). The Head of the Committee is not elected but appointed by the members.

The Popular Committee can be considered a mediation agent between the camp residents, UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority. It is the spokesman for the population of Fara’a.

The Popular Committee is mainly responsible for the maintenance of the water and electricity networks. Due to the lack of funds in UNRWA and in the Local Committee’s budgets, camp residents have to pay for these services, which before were free of charge. Last year, 75% of the families were able to pay for these bills. Now just 30% of them are still paying.

Economic environment:                                                                                   (top) 

If the economic situation in the whole Occupied Territories is harsh, the refugees’ one is even much worse. They don’t possess anything; they don’t have land or any resources on which they can invest. Even the land, on which their houses are built, does not belong to them. Before they became refugees, they were owners of lands or cattle, properties that make them feel secure and self-sufficient. After they fled, suddenly they found themselves without anything, relying just on UNRWA relief.

The main sectors in which refugees found jobs were agriculture and construction as well as in UNRWA offices. Fortunately, mainly due to the relatives’ remittances from the Gulf area and the job opportunities in Israel, the residents of the camp were able to improve their situation: they were able to improve their homes as well as begin some commercial activities or buy a piece of land outside the camp.

Nonetheless, the two Intifadas have left the camp residents cut off from jobs in Israel and even the remittances have been stopped because of the two Gulf wars and the present international boycotting of the new elected Hamas government (for instance, hundreds of PA employees have not been receiving their salaries for 4 months and international banks don’t allow any money transfers to the Occupied Territories).

Moreover, Israel is enacting a policy aimed to create several small Palestinian Bantustans; people from Fara’a are suffering for the closures imposed by Israel, which is isolating the area of their camp for the rest of the West Bank; they cannot reach even Nablus or Jenin where they used to work. The rate of unemployment has reached 50% of the population; among them, many young people with a high level of education. Some of them are employed in agricultural fields, but it is just a seasonal job and they receive a very low wage: “they work from the sunrise until the sunset, earning just NIS 30…that is not fair at all”, Y. from Fara’a camp.  

 

Social attitudes:                                                                                         (top)

The integration between camp population and Palestinians living in the villages and cities of the outskirts is not achieved completely; at first, they felt not welcome by the locals, since they perceived to be looked down upon, as they were poorer and without any property; moreover, they relied on what they earned from working on locals’ land.

During the two Intifadas, the locals’ esteem of refugees increased due to their active participation in the struggle against Israeli occupation and, consequently, camp inhabitants and locals established better relations between them. Still now, however, mistrust continues towards camp refugees, since they are always considered as a disvantaged and poor group of people, an isolated community different from the rest of Palestinians.

According to the people living in Fara’a, relations inside the camp are good; there is a high level of cooperation. It can be possible in spite of the different origins and the different political affiliations; they feel close as they are living the same life conditions and have the same expectation, to return to their homes in Historic Palestine. Families help each other face Israeli abuses as well as financial problems as they can.

The new generations of Fara’a camp are more connected with the other young people from outside; attending universities has allowed them to meet many other Palestinians. Many hope to improve their economic situation to move outside the camp, although it is hard for them as their identities are deeply linked to it: their social relations are mainly inside Fara’a camp and even their political identity is based on the camp life; the refugee camp is a symbol of their temporary nature of exile and their demand to exercise the right of return.

Their economic conditions are worse than their parents’ ones: the lack of job opportunities plus the reduction of UNRWA relief do not give them hopes of a better future.