Permanent refugees

Main street of Shufat Refugee Camp

25,000 marginalized Palestinians are crowded into one square kilometer in Shufat Refugee Camp north of Jerusalem. 75% of them are under age 18, and the average number of children per family is 7.7. Unemployment is a whopping 40%, and the community still depends on food aid from the United Nations.

A back street in Shufat

Dr. Salim Anati

We learned about the people in Shufat Camp from Dr. Salim Anati, the director of the disabled center who also works with the United Nations clinic. Salim's parents lost their farm and home in Lod, the present site of the Tel Aviv airport, at the time of Israel's Independence in 1948. They lived in a refugee shelter in Jerusalem until 1965, when they accepted an offer from the UN and Jordan to relocate to Shufat Camp with false promises that they would get a small plot to farm. They have been there ever since.

Conditions at the outset were terrible. Salim's family of nine was crowded into a single room, with no running water, electricity, or streets. Then they got water for two hours per day, and had to share a public toilet with 600 people. Now, nearly half a century later, conditions in Shufat have improved, but still leave much to be desired. They do not have any police force to keep order, but Salim says disputes are being resolved by a Wisdom Committee of respected older citizens. He says the camp is often attacked by Israeli soldiers or settlers, and young men have been wounded with rubber  bullets or had bones fractured  by beatings.

Class for learning disabled children

Salim's father urged him to help others, and he is passing this message on to his six children. In addition to his center's services for children with disabilities, it has a women's embroidery cooperative, which is marketing handmade products for sale abroad. The United Methodist Church in the United States is one of the sales partners. The center also organized a program in the nearby Qalandiya Refugee Camp for making "Peace Step" leather sandals for export.

Women's sewing cooperative

Embroidery products

Hidaya and her embroidery

We met a university student in Shufat Camp named Hidaya, who also does embroidery for relaxation  between her studies. She says, "I put my heart into it and give it as a gift." We met Hidaya's grandparents, who told us they fled their village in fear with just a few belongings after the massacre of more than 100 people in Deir Yassin by Israeli forces in 1948. They were transferred to Shufat Camp 20 years later, and have been their ever since, now surrounded  by their large family.

United Nations resolutions have repeatedly urged Israel to recognize the Palestinians' right of return to the land from which they were forced to flee in 1948, but Israel has refused to do so.