Palestinian refugee women and the Jenin refugee camp: Reflections on urbicide and the dilemmas of home in exile

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (14) ◽  
pp. 2897-2916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahera Bleibleh ◽  
Michael Vicente Perez ◽  
Thaira Bleibleh
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
The West ◽  
Palestinian Women ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Future ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
The Right

In March 2002, the Israeli military launched its most lethal attack on the West Bank since 1967. In the Jenin refugee camp, the assault included the deliberate destruction of homes and infrastructure including the entire Hawashin neighbourhood. This article considers the memories of Palestinian women who survived the urbicidal war on Jenin and confronted the difficulties of reconstruction. It shows how women enacted particular forms of agency during the siege that do not fit into discussions of urbicide or national resistance. Our analysis also examines the reconstruction of the Jenin camp to understand how its transformation reveals its significance for Palestinian women at both the levels of the home and the urban camp. We argue that the meaning of the camp is inseparable from the different ways it is inhabited. Thus for Palestinian women, the spatial reconfiguration of homes during the reconstruction of the camp permanently erased the experience of sociality once lived by women before the attack. This not only reproduced the effects of the urbicide but also disturbed the ways women inhabited the camp and provoked fears that it could be transformed into a permanent space and thus preclude the possibility of the right of return in the future.

Multilocality and the Politics of Space in Protracted Exile

Transfers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-107
Author(s):  
Dorota Woroniecka-Krzyzanowska
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The West ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Politics Of Space

This article employs the concept of multilocality to analyze the politics of space under the condition of protracted encampment. Rather than adopting a common synchronic approach to how refugees relate to space, the theoretical lens of multilocality grasps the diachronic dimension of protracted camps understood as places that encompass multiple attachments across time and space: the remembered and imagined places of origin, sites of residence in exile, and future geographies of hope or anticipation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in al-Am’ari, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, I analyze multilocality as a political practice whereby local residents and organizations nurture the refugee identity of their communities, resist the permanence of protracted exile, and manifest the necessity for political change.

Pilgrims, Protest Tourists, and Palestinians: Abu Dis, Bethlehem, Dheisheh Camp

2020 ◽  
pp. 016059762096475
Author(s):  
Philip Hopper
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The West ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Occupied Palestinian Territory ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Palestinian Territory ◽  
Permanent Residents

The central idea of this essay is that nonindigenous vernacular image-making by protest tourists on the Palestinian side of the Israeli separation barrier and elsewhere holds little meaning for the permanent residents beyond a relatively minor revenue stream. Prior to making this argument, I provide a short historical background about the use of vernacular messages in the occupied Palestinian territory known as the West Bank. I then focus on images of martyrs or shaheed and then on separation barrier images by protest tourists mostly in Bethlehem. The final sections are about two artists from the Dheisheh Palestinian Refugee Camp and the images they create within the camp. A coda of sorts discusses a mural within the camp that is venerated by the residents as opposed to the overpainting and defacement that takes place on the separation barrier. Within this final section and elsewhere within this essay, the meaning of sumood is explicated. As a note, protest tourists are defined here not as anti-tourism protesters but rather as tourists whose intent is protest Israeli policies regarding Palestinians.

Is the right of return still desirable and sacred among Palestinian refugees?

2020 ◽  
pp. 136914812093378
Author(s):  
Sobhi Albadawi
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The Political ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right

The right of return has been a fundamental claim by Palestinian people since 1948. The ‘right’ refers to the political position or principle that all generations of Palestinian refugees have the right to return to the property they or their forebears left behind during the 1948 Palestinian exodus, and following the 1967 Six-Day War. This study examines and updates Palestinian refugees’ views of the right of return claim, adopting a quantitative research design surveying 1200 participants from five refugee camps located in Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The study finds that even after 72 years of displacement, the right of return remains an active but changing political construct among surveyed Palestinians living in the West Bank. As such, future negotiations must consider the generational narratives and ensure that the right of return claim, resettlement, and compensation particularly are not treated as mutually exclusive in the delivery of a just solution to the displacement of Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian Women: Patriarchy and Resistance in the West Bank. By Cheryl A. Rubenberg. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001. 318p. $59.95.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-671
Author(s):  
Sara Roy
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
The West ◽  
Palestinian Women ◽  
Male Friend ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
As If ◽  
Oslo Agreement

Several years ago, not long before the signing of the Oslo agreement, I was in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. As I was walking through the camp with a male friend, a woman whom I did not know approached me. She gently took my arm as if we were intimate friends, pulled me close, and said, “I have nothing left to feed my children but black milk.” She then turned and walked away, leaving as imperceptibly as she had approached. My male friend immediately dismissed her as crazy. Yet I have never forgotten this woman or our momentary but wrenching encounter. It was not only the poignancy of her words that struck me, but their poetry. Her message to me was one of ultimate despair: I can no longer nourish my children. What good am I?

Memories for the Return? Remembering the Nakba by the First Generation of Palestinian Refugees in Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Oslo Accords ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Way

The 1948 Nakba has, in light of the 1993 Oslo Accords and Palestinian refugee activists' mobilisation around the right of return, taken on a new-found centrality and importance in Palestinian refugee communities. Closely-related to this, members of the ‘Generation of Palestine’, the only individuals who can recollect Nakba memories, have come to be seen as the guardians of memories that are eventually to reclaim the homeland. These historical, social and political realities are deeply rooted in the ways in which the few remaining members of the generation of Palestine recollect 1948. Moreover, as members of communities that were destroyed in Palestine, and whose common and temporal and spatial frameworks were non-linearly constituted anew in Syria, one of the multiples meanings of the Nakba today can be found in the way the refugee communities perceive and define this generation.

Sensory Perceptual Experience in Balata Refugee Camp

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
Shahd Adnan M. Qzeih ◽  
Rafooneh Mokhtarshahi Sani
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Palestinian Territories ◽  
The World

Wars and conflicts have caused millions of people to seek asylum outside their homelands and the issue of refugee camps has become a pressing subject in international policy discussions. Conflicts continue to escalate in different parts of the world, especially in Middle Eastern countries. In 1948, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict forced displacement of many Palestinian people. The resulting camps have developed into cluster camp shelters of three to four stories in the West Bank, Gaza, and other regions around historical Palestine; some are perceived to be like gated communities. Being self-sufficient environments, refugee camps have rarely been approached from the perspective of urban psychology. This research deals with sensory perceptual analysis of Balata, the largest refugee camp in the West Bank of Palestinian Territories. Balata is situated in Nablus and has raised four generations of refugees since its establishment. In order to explore the spatial characteristics of such specific environmental experiences, the research adopted a mixed-method approach – systematically evaluating the related literature on sensory perceptual spaces and applying content analysis methods. The study modified the sensory slider tool of Malnar and Vodvarka according to the framework matrix based on the content analysis. Moreover, the case study analysis consisted of observation of the chosen area and 30 in-depth interviews with refugees who were forced out of their homes and settled in the camp as well as some who were born in the camp. The research results show that investigating what camp residents perceive of the five senses can capture meaningful sensory perceptual experiences and can generate a holistic mental image of the refugee camp. Particularly, perceptions of the built environment reflect the difficulty of life experiences. The study concludes that the characteristics of camps in this seventy-year-old conflict environment may not be found in other parts of the world.

Jurisdiction and Justiciability

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
David Kretzmer ◽  
Yaël Ronen
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sovereign Territory

This chapter describes the basis for the Court’s jurisdiction over petitions by residents of territory that is not the sovereign territory of Israel, but is ruled under a regime of belligerent occupation. The chapter examines the readiness of the Court to entertain such petitions, given that their subject matter falls within areas that are arguably non-justiciable. The chapter stresses the tension in the Court’s decisions created by its position that the legality of Israel’s most controversial policy in the West Bank—the settlement project—is not justiciable, and its ruling that the political nature of a government act cannot block the right of individuals to challenge the legality of acts that violate their rights.

scholarly journals Anaemia among pregnant Palestinian women in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2416-2420 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Khader ◽  
H Madi ◽  
F Riccardo ◽  
G Sabatinelli
Keyword(s):  
Pregnant Women ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Gaza Strip ◽  
Prevalence Rates ◽  
The West ◽  
Palestinian Women ◽  
Occupied Palestinian Territory ◽  
Health Centres ◽  
The Gaza Strip ◽  
Palestinian Territory

AbstractObjectiveTo assess anaemia prevalence and correlated social and biological determinants among pregnant women in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt).DesignA cross-sectional survey conducted among pregnant women attending/accessing UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) health centres in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in September and October 2006.SettingFifty-five UNRWA health centres in the oPt (eighteen in the Gaza Strip and thirty-seven in the West Bank).SubjectsA random sample of 1740 pregnant women.ResultsOverall anaemia prevalence was 38·6 % (95 % CI 36·3, 40·9 %). A substantial difference in anaemia prevalence was observed between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (44·9 % v. 31·1 %, respectively), as well as a significant increase in anaemia prevalence in the Gaza Strip compared with an Agency-wide survey conducted in 2004 (44·9 % v. 35·7 %, respectively). Anaemia prevalence was found to increase with age, parity and trimester of gestation.ConclusionsAnaemia still appears to be a public health problem among pregnant women in spite of UNRWA interventions. The West Bank shows prevalence rates similar to those observed in neighbouring countries, while the Gaza Strip has higher rates. Prevalence rates of anaemia among pregnant Palestinian women are more than two times higher than those observed in Europe.

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