Refugee camps and the right of return

Since the occurrence of the Nakba in 1948, the Palestinian camps have remained one of the greatest real witnesses to the suffering of the Palestinian people, living witnesses to the Zionist crimes against them, and one of the greatest symbols of Palestinian suffering. At the same time, it emerged as one of the biggest signs of Palestinian patience, steadfastness, and giving, and the insistence that asylum is temporary, pending return to Palestine. However, these camps, especially in the diaspora, have become vulnerable to calamities. The Palestinian refugees paid a heavy bill as a result of Western hypocrisy that devoted all the conditions for a decent life to Ukrainian refugees. Poverty and hunger are two different things between this and that Palestinian refugee who languishes in refugee camps in Lebanon that do not have the minimum living conditions. There is no infrastructure, no government interest, they have no civil and economic rights, they have no freedom of movement and travel, and they are deprived of health and medical care.

The situation is not much different for the Palestinian refugees in Syria, for they have another tragedy, how can they not? They are the ones who fled one war only to find another war whose profound repercussions were reflected on them in killing, displacement, arrest and displacement.

To be a Palestinian is not a requirement to be a refugee outside your homeland. It is sufficient for you to be inside Gaza to feel that you are confined inside your motherland in a narrow strip between the sea and the territories occupied in 1948, where you face war and continuous siege, the impact of division, lack of job opportunities, not to mention the poor health conditions of the Palestinian camps. Where the situation is getting worse day by day as a result of the increasing population density, in addition to the diminishing services provided by the official authorities that do not care about the deteriorating conditions of the refugees inside the Strip, while the refugees in the West Bank camps suffer from the raids of the occupation forces, which continue to storm the Palestinian camps and launch daily arrest campaigns in the areas In different governorates of the West Bank, especially in the camps, where these arrests come to break the ember of the Palestinian refugee youth in the resistance, and this is in light of their insistence on struggle against the occupation in all its forms.

Of these camps, there are 58 camps officially registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees, distributed among 19 camps in the West Bank, eight camps in the Gaza Strip, ten camps in Jordan, nine in Syria, and 12 camps in Lebanon, in addition to the camps not recognized by UNRWA in these areas, including them as well. What has been destroyed or relocated or closed.

While the number of Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA is currently about five million and 400 thousand refugees, these are not all Palestinian refugees; Many Palestinians refused to register with UNRWA to dispense with its services, just as many Palestinians did not register themselves for residing outside the UNRWA areas of work, which are confined to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

At the beginning of the asylum, many Palestinians in the camps refused to convert the tents they live in into buildings, but the prolonged suffering imposed itself on their reality, and they were forced to gradually adapt to their conditions. of constant daily suffering.

Despite the replacement of the tent with mud houses, and then cement, the camp has preserved its name in the collective consciousness of the Palestinians, as a kind of desire to be an emergency place for temporary residence. The Palestinian suffering, at the same time, emerged as one of the features of patience, steadfastness, giving, and the Palestinian struggle. From the heart of the camp, revolutionary movements emerged, and the children of the refugees were soldiers for struggle and resistance. The camp was and still is a motive for liberating the land and achieving return.

The refugee camps were and still are the body that haunts the governments of Israel, so it sought to draw up plans and projects to end the existence of the camps and liquidate them in an attempt to dissolve the refugees in the local environment and end the role of the UNRWA, David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister stated in March 1957, while Israel was preparing To withdraw from the Gaza Strip, that the Gaza Strip will remain a source of problems unless the refugees settle elsewhere.

It also came in Sharon's autobiography, saying: (I believe that it is time to solve the Palestinian refugee problem, and I am ready to do so, and it will be in our interest to a large extent to eliminate it once and for all, and in my opinion such a matter is possible), as that was the basis of Sharon's plan And get rid of the Palestinian refugee camps completely.

Attempts to target the UNRWA by reducing services and changing the pattern of distributing social relief are nothing but a desperate attempt to liquidate them, because Israel believes that by improving the conditions of the camps and canceling the role of the UNRWA, the Palestinian refugees will not be required to return, and the place in which they reside will be imposed on them as a place of permanent residence, because the return of the Palestinian refugees to Their homes and land are not in the interest of Israel in terms of its fear of the demographic dimension on the state of the entity and its constant endeavor to establish a pure Jewish state in occupied Palestine, provided that it is devoid of any presence of the Arab element.

As for the key, which we must not forget, the key is one of the most important symbols by which Palestinians express their adherence to the right to return to the lands occupied in 1948. The symbolism of this key is no longer limited to refugees only, but has become a collective culture in the Palestinian consciousness and among non-refugees in the West Bank. And Gaza and in the diaspora

The key took other forms, and turned into an essential element in the stories and poems of asylum, and in plastic art, and became competing with the keffiyeh in denoting Palestinian identity, and some designed the largest key to show the extent of interest in it

Many of the refugees from the West Bank camps and others still keep the keys to their homes that they brought with them in the year of the Nakba, while those who met their term delivered it, rather they inherited it from parents to their children and grandchildren. We say that fathers die and children do not forget.