In the period of 1947 to 1949, during the armed conflict and the first Arab-Israeli war, around 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes. Today the number of Palestinian refugees is about 4.7 million, according to the UNWRA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). Resolution 194, passed by UN`s General Assembly on 11th of December 1948, states that "[Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date”. Still Israel has not allowed this return, and one third of the refugees still live in camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank. In total there are 189,188 refugees living here at the West Bank. Of these around 13,000 live in Dheisheh refugee camp, which I visited last week.
With 13,000 people on one square kilometer, Dheisheh is, like most refugee camps, a crowded place. Playing grounds consist of a few square meters of asphalt. People build new houses on top of their parents` roofs. Economy has gone worse because of the barrier and the check points, which have made it difficult for many Palestinians to get to their work. Today unemployment has reached 70 percent, we were told.
Many of the walls in Dheisheh were decorated with paintings. In one there were clouds with names of villages that the people here had left. In another one I could see the separation wall and a bird leaving a prison cell. There were sculls and dark colours. There was a mother and a child, sheep and a flute. In the midst of the dreary realities in Dheisheh, I thought I could see dreams of something different, something beautiful.
A playing ground in Dheisheh.
If you want to read more about the Palestinian refugees, you can check out this webpage: Badil
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