GAZA CAMP, Jordan, 18 August 2005 — As children in the street chanted “Gaza is liberated,” 65-year-old Ayed Suleiman Abu-Hashish broke into tears. “I can’t wait to go back,” he said. “I bet it has changed a lot since I left nearly 40 years ago.” Many in this squalid camp said Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip which began Monday had revived hopes they could return to the Mediterranean strip and homes they fled in the 1967 Middle East War.
The fate of refugees — many who also fled land that made up the state of Israel before the 1967 war — was still to be negotiated with the Palestinians in so-called final-status talks. Also at issue in those thorny talks will be the status of Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their capital although it has been under Israeli control since the 1967 war.
In the meantime, Israel will still control all forms of entry into Gaza and the West Bank. So far, Israel has not recognized Palestinian “right of return” but indicated that it was willing to allow a limited number of Arabs to join relatives in Israel under family reunification. Even so, Israel was likely to bar the bulk of Palestinian refugees from going back to Gaza or the West Bank, from where Israel has also pledged to withdraw four settlements while keeping the bulk of the enclaves intact.
At Gaza Camp’s only traditional coffee shop, regulars rejoiced over the Israeli withdrawal and were given free coffee and tea. In one smoke-filled corner, 67-year-old Mohammad Al-Ghazawi, wore a traditional white-and-black checked headdress as he quizzed his friends about their future plans. “Do you think the Israelis will allow us back in Gaza?” he asked as he sipped spiced Arabic coffee. “No,” the answer came quickly from Ismail Abu-Taha, puffing on his water pipe.
“The Israelis are only maneuvering to show the world that they’re giving back lands to Palestinians, but we’re not in their books; we have long been forgotten,” he said. Two blocks away, Umm Mohammad, 72, disagreed. “Why would they give back the land if they won’t allow its owners to go live in it. Don’t listen to this nonsense,” she said, standing on the doorstep of her shabby convenience store, wearing a black dress and handing out candy to neighborhood children.
“Palestine is Arab” and “Gaza is liberated” chanted the children, some as young as 5. An open sewer flowed along the street from a nearby cluster of rundown brick homes with temporary roofs. Passers-by gave the children thumbs up and victory signs, as they left a school that is run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The organization oversees services — including health care and education — to some 13 refugee camps in Jordan.
Gaza Camp, which is west of Jerash, Jordan’s famed Roman-ruin city, and about 50 kilometers north of the capital Amman, is home to 27,000 Palestinian refugees. It has the largest concentration of Gaza natives. UNRWA estimates that there is a total of 122,000 Gazans living in Jordan, which is the largest Arab host to the estimated total of 1.8 million Palestinian refugees.
Unlike many of their counterparts from the West Bank, Gaza refugees do not carry Jordanian passports and many have temporary travel documents from Egypt, which had administered the strip until the 1967 war. Jordan ruled the West Bank for 17 years ending with Israel’s seizure of the territory in the same war.
The kingdom has offered passports to natives of the West Bank to facilitate their travel, but says refugees can relinquish those travel documents if they decided to move back to the West Bank under a future Palestinian-Israeli deal.
In neighboring Lebanon’s Ein El-Hilweh camp, the country’s largest with a population of 75,000, the pullout from Gaza generated feelings of joy and hope. Lebanon is third after Jordan and Syria in the number of Palestinians refugees.
Palestinian guerrillas from various factions joined civilians and old women, their heads covered with white scarves, in the Arabic Dabkeh dance accompanied by bagpipes in the teeming camp.
“When the intifada (uprising) began, we felt that something would be achieved. Today, we are sure that this intifada has begun achieving the first of its goals with Gaza’s independence,” said Lt. Col. Maher Shabaitah, who heads the mainstream Fatah guerrilla movement office in Ein El-Hilweh. Ramzi Qabalawi, 55, a refugee who has been living in Lebanon since the founding of Israel in 1948, said the Gaza withdrawal was “a great victory” for the Palestinians.
Jubilation at Jordan’s Gaza Camp, however, was dimmed by the suspicion that Israel’s pullout from Gaza was a tactic to strengthen Israel’s grip on the West Bank.
