A refugee camp and a Palestinian school

Shufat checkpoint north of Jerusalem was easy. When we re-entered  from the other side, two of us EAs were waved through without even showing our passport. There were no lines, and the metal detector was not in use.

We visited the huge Shufat refugee camp, which according to people we talked to at a school for the handicapped now has a population of 70,000 refugees from all over central Palestine. It is not as clean or well kept as the Deheishe refugee camp I have visited near Bethlehem. The UN refugee program has told EAPPI it lacks resources to care for all of them. It does give food assistance and operates a health center.

Burned out wreck near Shufat bus terminal

Shufat main street

Shufat alley

Just outside the old city of Jerusalem, in Wadi Rababa, we visited an orphan boys school that according to the plaque was rehabilitated with funding "by the American people through USAID for the  benefit of the Palestinian people."

View from Wadi Rababa. Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque in background

EAs regularly visit the school on Thursdays to accompany the boys when leaving, in case they have problems with Jewish settlers or the police. The school said there have been few problems recently, but we did see one activity of the boys that could trigger a reaction. When they went down the hill some of them threw stones at a house of Israeli settlers, and they made a loud clunk on the metal roof.

Boys leaving school in Wadi Rababa. They threw stones at a Jewish settlers' house, center-right.

A few of the boys also through stones toward a Jewish couple standing further below, but I don't know if they were hit.  Jenny (EA from England) and I both were struck by small objects. Apparently the boys did not understand our neutral mission to protect their human rights.

We then saw police with a chestful of tear-gas canisters patrolling the hill, and a group of 6 having their lunch.They did not interact at all with the boys who passed by, but human rights agencies say that sometimes boys have been arrested for stone throwing and not well treated in custody.

As EAs, it is our duty to observe and report, not intervene in at attempt to stop the stone throwing. or to take sides. We are not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, but pro human rights.