News headlines are full of stories about Israeli attacks on Hamas terrorist targets in Palestinian “refugee camps.” The term may conjure images of people living in tents, having recently fled conflict zones.
In reality, Palestinian “refugee camps” in the Middle East are dense multistory residential neighborhoods settled by Palestinian refugees after Arab states went to war against Israel in 1948 and 1967.
In the Aida refugee camp, for example, seen from afar in the foreground of the photo above, and shown below, there are multistory buildings that that were built over several decades. Such camps are typically neighborhoods next to other urban areas.
Aida refugee camp (Dominiek Benoot / UNRWA)
Life in Palestinian refugee camps is not easy, especially in Gaza: unemployment is high, living conditions are crowded, and residents are sometimes used as human shields by terrorists. The situation is the result of a policy decision by Arab countries.
Israel settled Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries; most Arab countries kept Palestinian refugees apart.
Palestinian refugee camps are administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is separate from the main UN refugee agency, the High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).
UNRWA has also adopted an expansive definition of “refugees” when it comes to Palestinians — and only Palestinians — such that second-generation descendants are to be considered “refugees.” UNRWA does not resettle Palestinian refugees; it perpetuates their status, which is used as leverage against Israel.
Regardless, UNRWA does invest in improving the infrastructure of the refugee camps. It notes on its website: “Over the years, these camps have transformed from temporary ‘tent cities’ into hyper-congested masses of multi-storey buildings with narrow alleys, characterized by high concentrations of poverty and extreme overcrowding.”
UNRWA says conditions in some camps are “life-threatening” — which is especially the case when Hamas and other terrorist groups use them as bases of their operations.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
