ARGYII, Scotland, 21 February 2004 — Most people are aware of the killings on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the poverty and misery that the ordinary Palestinian has suffered in a land occupied by Israel since 1948 — when Israel was formally created. The harsh realities of the suicide bombers fill our television screens so frequently that many in the West are immune to the bombings’ emotional effects. They are, to many, nothing new in a region that is seen to live by the gun.
The displacement of the Palestinian people, however, is not limited to the borders of Israel. It is also a phenomenon seen in countries such as Lebanon — a state that is now rebuilding after years of war. Within Lebanon, around 400,000 refugees barely survive in ghetto-like camps on the outskirts of Beirut, Tyre, Tripoli and Sidon.
The largest of these, Ain El-Hilweh, in Lebanon’s southern city of Sidon, houses some 70,000 people in conditions akin to those of the shantytowns in poverty-stricken Peru.
Ain El-Hilweh was established in 1948 to house the exodus of Palestinians fleeing their homeland. On entry to the camp, tight security and an overhead banner decreeing the will of the Palestinian people inside greet you.
Sidon — a poor but dignified city in Lebanon — is left behind, and you are transported to another, more sinister world, a world governed by different rules, whose people live in the hope that they will one day return to a free and peaceful Palestine.
I found the head of the Fatah movement within the camp, Ahmad Shabaytah, a likeable man, and was struck by his willingness to wax lyrical over the desperate social conditions of Ain El-Hilweh. In a room occupied by four minders and a rifle-carrying guard, Shabaytah, himself born and raised in the camp, spoke of the irony regarding the formation of the site.
“This land was given to us in 1948 by the Lebanese government, which sympathized with us at the time, as temporary accommodation for the Palestinian people,” he says.
“But look at us now we’ve been here for 55 years. We used to be 35,000, but since the internal conflict in Lebanon a lot of refugees flooded into the camp until it swelled to the 70,000 it is now. The growth in population, however, was not matched in improvement of the general situation. The day-to-day life here is the responsibility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which is not fulfilling its duties due to pressure from the US.”
He continues: “Since the signing of the peace agreement in Oslo, the pressure on us increased from America, they also put pressure on the hosting government (Lebanon) to make us citizens, which would automatically mean we would lose our rights to return to our homeland.”
This pressure, according to Shabaytah, is primarily responsible for the breakdown in the education and health sector of Ain El-Hilweh.
“The system of education is the same in the camp as it is in any part of Lebanon,” he says. “But compared with other parts of Lebanon, where students go from 8 a. m.-2 p. m, in the camp, due to our increasing number of students, we have to do two or three shifts to accommodate them all.”
“This affects the quality of the teaching, the students are not getting enough time to be educated properly. The number of students has increased, but the number of schools has remained the same. This also includes the number of students per classroom, which has increased from 30 to 60.”
Despite this, Shabaytah is proud of the strong resolve that many Palestinians have shown in terms of their ability to thrive in academic circles.
“Regardless of these difficult educational circumstances the Palestinian students have an innate talent for maths and physics,” he says.
Nevertheless, in an area where opportunities are rare, and the day-to-day situation dire, many professionals, such as engineers and doctors, drive taxis and sell pet birds in a bid to survive.
“The Lebanese government issued a decree, banning the Palestinians from practicing 72 types of jobs outside the camp,” he explains. “They were allowed to do hard labor jobs, such as digging roads, but that has now stopped. We have no rights.”
In terms of his future, his outlook is simple enough. “I will either die here as a martyr or go back to my homeland,” he says unflinchingly. “It will be one way or the other.”
My next appointment entailed a half— kilometer drive through the worn street of the camp. With an armed guard in the back of the car, it took us 10 minutes to veer through the various obstacles in our path. Suspicious eyes peered from shops on the side of the road, while fruit and hanging meat were displayed in the midday sun.
Another group of men was waiting for me in a darkened room. To the eerie ticking of a ceiling fan, Ghazi Assadi, the only independent member of the camp’s Popular Committee, approached nervously but, like Shabaytah, was eager to describe the day-to-day sufferings, which he says are spiraling out of control.
“Poor medical care is the biggest problem here,” he says. “UNRWA is the only source which provides services for the Palestinians, but it has been in budget deficit for a long time now, especially after the Oslo agreement. When we need hospitalization they give referrals to private hospitals in Lebanon. However, there are only limited beds for Palestinians; the number of beds is not enough for the number of patients.”
Indeed, forbidden to use government hospitals in Lebanon, Palestinian patients are often forced to make up the balance, which is sometimes more than that paid by UNRWA.
“The people have no money,” he says. “The majority is just left to suffer. Palestinians needing heart operations, and who are over 60, are denied treatment. We are in desperate need of support from the international community.”
More alarming is the state of general healthcare facilities within the camp. With 70,000 Palestinians to take care of, the presence of only five doctors, who take their salaries from UNRWA, provides more than enough evidence of the tragic situation that the ordinary Palestinian faces.
“If we want to talk about healthcare, then we will need at least a whole day,” he says with a strained smile.
When our discussion turned to crime — and as our conversation ended — Assadi made a remark, highlighting the harsh realities of Ain El-Hilweh, without the slightest hint of irony. “Surprisingly, crime here is very low, although we do have severe problems with gun battles among our many factions.”
— Alasdair Soussi is a journalist based in Scotland.