Monday, Apr 24, 2017

Beirut: Intra-Palestinian confrontations between Fatah and the hard line Islamist Badr group in Ain Al Hilweh this month has refocused media attention on the camp’s ongoing humanitarian crises.

Not only is Ain Al Hilweh the largest and most crowded of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, estimated to house over 150,000 in 2017, it is also one of the poorest.

Haphazardly constructed just southeast of the city of Sidon (Saida) after 1948, when the first wave of Palestinians expelled from Israel arrived, Ain Al Hilweh swelled with the addition of at least 25,000 Palestinians that fled the Yarmouk camp near Damascus, Syria, after the 2011 uprising against the Syrian regime ripped it apart.

The largely dilapidated camp suffers from chronic water and electricity shortage.

Crowded buildings, two to three storeys high, practically keep out any sunlight and keep in humidity causing its elderly inhabitants to develop serious respiratory problems.

Needless to say, its health care and education facilities are primitive.

Although the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), along with several private organisations like the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), which helps Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories, and the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) provide basic necessities, resources are too stretched to provide further help.

UNRWA provides basic relief amenities but is unable to ensure common services, such as solid waste disposal, as this falls under the responsibility of local authorities — Palestinians inside the camps and Lebanese outside.

Some 450,000 Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, although the real number is likely higher.

Initially, Palestinians were denied job opportunities in 70 categories, but in 2007 the number was reduced to only 20 categories, so that they would have more opportunities.

In a major breakthrough in 2010, Palestinians were granted the same rights as other foreigners in the country — they still, however, are not allowed to own land.

By Joseph A. Kechichian Senior Writer

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