Dust-infested Arroub, a Palestinian refugee camp located in the southern West Bank along the Hebron-Jerusalem road, has the unmistakable look and feel of a shanty town.
Concrete run-down houses straddle the ‘main street’ – a stretch of dirt road – and the site expands to the overlooking hill. A handful of children kick about a deflated leather football, clotheslines hang on tiny balconies, women in headscarves bustle about. Our taxi was the only vehicle traversing the main street at the time.
Not two minutes earlier, on the road to Arroub, you’d be forgiven for thinking you had suddenly been teleported from the Middle East to Europe; for less than a kilometer from the refugee camp, off the highway, is the massive Israeli settlement of Gush Ezyon, its neatly arranged, modern housing units and striking greenery contrasting sharply with the typically rugged West Bank scenery.
One of 18 refugee camps distributed throughout the West Bank, Arroub was established in 1949, 15 km south of Bethlehem. Like other West Bank camps, it was established on land UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) leased from the government of Jordan. The original inhabitants came from 33 villages in Ramleh, Hebron and Gaza.
All shelters are connected to public water and electricity infrastructure. Internet service is also available. One in a hundred shelters is not connected to the public sewage network and, thus, has latrines that empty into cesspits.
Dominating the entrance to Arroub is a concrete Israeli military watchtower. Because the entry point is just off a main road – used by Palestinians and Israelis alike – it is designated as Area C, i.e. it is under full Israeli control. To explain: the Palestinian Authority has some “civil control” in area A, while area B is characterized by some joint-administration between the PA and Israel. Israel maintains overall control over Israeli settlements, land, roads, water, airspace, “external” security and borders for the entire territory.
Being in Area C, and next to an Israeli settlement, creates a precarious situation because, as the Palestinians explain, things can flare up at the drop of a hat.
A week earlier, the locals say, an Israeli settler in his car pulled up outside Arroub, and called over two Palestinians teenagers. According to the same account, the settler then shot both youths and fled the scene, leaving the two youngsters in critical condition. It was not possible to ascertain the background, if any, to the incident.
Due to discrepancies between UNRWA and Palestinian Authority statistics, precise figures are hard to come by, but the population of Arroub is currently estimated at just under 11,000. There are just 240 donums of land, and 1,300 houses in the camp for 2,300 families, meaning that several families have to share.
Overcrowding aside, the unemployment rate is 30 per cent and is affected by the increased inaccessibility of the Israeli labour market.
Some of the people here work in banks, for UNRWA and for the Palestinian National Authority. As a result of growing restrictions since the second Intifadah, today only about 50 people from the camp work as laborers in Israel. To make it in time for work, they have to wake up well before the crack of dawn, to allow for time spent at the checkpoints, which usually takes hours.
The camp has a health centre run by UNRWA and a relief and social programme, as well as a job creation programme, paying up to $420 a month, but only for three months a year per person. There are two schools (built with UNRWA funds), one for boys the other for girls (ages 6-15). There is also a youth activities centre, and a centre for the disabled/handicapped.
During the drive to the UNRWA offices, a man with no lower limbs was crawling on his stomach along a dirt road. People gathered around the scene, some prodding, others trying to lend a helping hand.
In addition, there is a park for children, a swimming pool, two halls for community activities, and a soccer field is in the pipeline. And perhaps inevitably, the camp has a local committee affiliated to the PLO.
Half of the people here hail from Iraq al Manshiyya, a former Palestinian village located 32 km northeast of Gaza City.
Iraq al-Manshiyya was in the territory allotted to the Arab state under the 1947 UN Partition Plan. It was captured by Israel’s Alexandroni Brigade on March 1, 1949 from Egyptian forces in Operation Yoav. The Egyptian Army controlled the area – which included al-Faluja – surrounded by Israeli forces. After Egypt and Israel negotiated an armistice agreement, the Israeli Defense Forces intimidated the inhabitants to flee.
Iraq al-Manshiyya and surrounding lands have long been replaced by the the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat.
During this time, UN observers reported not only beatings and robberies, but also cases of attempted rape and “promiscuous firing” on civilians by Israeli soldiers.
By mid March 1949, all of the residents of al-Faluja had abandoned their homes, but it wasn’t until April 21–22, in Red Cross-organized convoys, and under pressure from more shootings, that the residents of Iraq al-Manshiya left their own. Five days later, Yitzhak Rabin ordered the demolition of both villages.
These events are etched into the memory of Hasan Muhammad Mahie-al–Deen al-Jaberi, a Palestinian refugee from Iraq al-Manshiyya now in his late 70s. His most harrowing recollection is the shooting, execution-style, of two young men in front of all the villagers by the Israelis after the surrender and withdrawal of the Egyptian forces.
According to al-Jaberi, UN observers were in the village at the time of the shootings.
“The Israelis ordered us to go outside the village, and they began demolishing houses. Then one of the UN observers, a Mr. Testi of Sweden, told the people ‘Sorry, but I cannot cover [help] you.”
Al-Jaberi recalls how the mukhtar of the village at first refused to leave. “He said ‘Allah will help us.’ Then an Israeli soldier replied with sarcasm that ‘God has fled to Bethlehem and he cannot help you’.”
Earlier, in mid-February the Jordanians tried to smuggle 100 camels packed with supplies to aid the surrounded village. A Briton was with the Jordanian contingent and took pictures. He was disguised as an Arab, wearing the keffiyeh, the traditional headdress.
Before the population was evacuated, al-Jaberi says, “we lived outdoors, in the roads, for two months. Then the Jordanians came with trucks and brought us here to Arroub.”
Conditions in the beginning were hard. “Four families had to share a single tent. We had no running water, no work, no food, no clothes. The UN had not yet started operating in the area.
“We were very hungry, it was cold. We lived in these circumstances for two years. I remember how young men would receive 2 kilos of flour for a day’s work.”
Today, al-Jaberi has 60 children and grandchildren, all living at Arroub camp. The passage of time has not diminished his desire to return to his native village.
“If I had a choice between my village and paradise, I would choose my village,” he declares, a nostalgic look on his face.
Yet in the same breath he acknowledges how remote the possibility of return is: “Israel will not give back anything. The Israelis will not give up a millimeter, unless it is by force.”
The visit to Arroub was arranged through the kind assistance of the Middle East Council of Churches, a coalition of NGOs. The MECC, which provides aid relief to Arroub as well as other refugee camps in the West Bank, put us in touch with the Women’s Activities Centre in Arroub. Our contacts at the camp were Hiyam Salhoub, director of the Women’s Activities Centre, and Abd-el Latif abu Safiyeh, the UNRWA camp services officer.
During the short drive from the Women’s Activities Centre in Arroub to the camp’s UNRWA office, a striking sight greeted us in the form of a lavish, stone-built villa. The beautiful construction is situated in a plot of land, in what you might call the ‘suburbs’ of Arroub, separated from the main camp. Not something you’d expect to see in a refugee camp. Apparently the house belongs to a wealthy Palestinian family. Inquiries about it were met with shrugs.
The plight of Palestinian refugees, through 1948 to 1967 to this day, is well-documented and easily observable. And yet, even in this case, perceptions vary. Chatting casually with some Bethlehemites over a cup of fragrant Arabic coffee, it soon became apparent that not everyone shares the image of the perennially-afflicted Palestinian refugee who has no place under the sun.
“Over there in Arroub, they all get free electricity and water, fully subsidized by the PA. They don’t pay any taxes or municipal fees. Whereas the rest of us…well, you name a tax we got it” said one middle-aged kiosk owner.
“I’m not saying they have it easy, but the refugees in Lebanon and Syria are far worse off. Do not be fooled,” added a female patron who was listening in on the conversation.
His remarks having elicited a momentary grimace of disbelief, the kiosk owner resolved to prove his point by offering a flash tour of Dheisheh, another refugee camp, located just south of Bethlehem.
Dheisheh lies on the Hebron-Jerusalem road, on the way to Arroub but within Bethlehem’s town limits. The actual camp is situated on the left side of the road on the way to Hebron; on the right hand side of the road, opposite the camp, lies the city of al-Doha. Replete with supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants, the city is a vast complex of apartments of a high quality, with broad, clean streets. The majority of houses here are owned by refugees of Dheisheh. Here, al-Doha is known as the ‘refugees’ city’.
Locals say that most Dheisheh refugees have two dwellings, one in the actual camp, the other in al-Doha. And they relate an incident from a few years back to illustrate how some of the refugees, as they see it, take advantage of their special status.
When a private electricity company cut the power to a residence in Dheisheh for not paying its bills, the refugees at Dheisheh rioted. Outraged refugees set up roadblocks, assaulted the crew of the electricity company and set fire to the company cars.
To quell the disturbances, the late Yasser Arafat, then President of the Palestinian Authority, intervened to restore power to the residence and decreed that henceforth, no residents of Dheisheh would pay for their electricity.
