A camp located 5 kilometers north of Jerusalem, between the villages of Shuafat and Anata. It is like a small prison surrounded by bridges above it and settlements around it. It was established in 1965 on an area of 200 dunams (a dunam is equivalent to a thousand square metres) and is surrounded by the Israeli separation wall.
The Shuafat camp lives in a state of constant threat and suffers from the possibility of being isolated at any moment. It is surrounded by a gate through which entry and exit is allowed according to “good conduct,” through a checkpoint that takes hours to cross.
the site
In practice, the camp is located in the heart of the city of Jerusalem after the Israeli occupation expanded the borders of the occupied city to connect it to the West Bank settlements. It is legally part of the city, but it is behind the wall, and therefore it does not receive services and does not benefit from repairs and renovations.
It is bordered to the south by the French Hill settlement, to the north by the Pisgat Zeev settlement, and to the east by the Anatot settlement. The camp only has an eastern exit left, which it shares with the neighboring town of Anata, and this exit is often closed when any security setback occurs.
The camp was established on a plot of land rented by UNRWA from the Jordanian government.
Population
Shuafat camp is inhabited by more than 70 thousand people, all of whom hold blue ID cards, and are distributed among the camp and three other neighborhoods: Ras Khamis, Ras Shehadeh, and Dahiyat Al Salam.
The residents of Shuafat camp – like other Palestinian refugee camps – were expelled from their villages and cities after the 1948 war, but refugees residing in the Jewish Quarter and the adjacent neighborhood of honor were also transferred there.
In 1929, the Jews were deported from the Islamic neighborhoods as a result of the Buraq Revolution, and the events of 1936 accelerated their deportation. The neighborhood was completely evacuated of Jews in 1948 after they crossed into the western part of Jerusalem, and Arab refugees from Jerusalem and elsewhere resided in places where Jews had lived.
In 1964, the Jordanian government agreed with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) on the necessity of deporting the residents of Al Sharaf and the Jewish Quarter, who are refugees who hold the agency’s card.
The project aimed to transport refugees from the Old City by planning between UNRWA and the Jordanian and Israeli governments, and planning for this began in 1959.
The Jordanian government informed UNRWA of the need to find a new camp to replace the Jewish ghetto, but the agency initially hesitated, fearing the refugees’ reaction.
UNRWA directors discussed among themselves the Jordanian government’s desire to move refugees from the neighborhood to Shuafat, but they did not record a conclusive reason, and some refugees and observers at the time accused the Jordanian government of concluding a secret deal with Israel before 1967 to grant it this neighborhood.
Transferring refugees from the Jewish Quarter to Shuafat was a priority on the agenda of UNRWA, the Jordanian government, and Israel, but the agency requested a pledge that “they will not infiltrate and return to the city,” and proposed demolishing the neighborhood and reducing the rations for those who refuse to move.
The origins of the refugees in Shuafat camp go back to 55 villages in the areas of Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, and Ramla. Most of them are from families that arrived in the camp in the 1960s, and they hold civil IDs belonging to Jerusalem, which qualifies them to obtain some of the social services provided by the occupation authorities, such as health care.
The number of refugees in the camp – according to UNRWA records – is estimated at 18,000 refugees, of whom 4,000 moved there to avoid losing residency rights. As for the residents residing in the neighborhoods adjacent to the camp, they are Jerusalemites who hold Israeli IDs, and they resided there due to low housing prices.
Infrastructure
Shuafat Camp and the neighborhoods adjacent to it suffer from poor infrastructure and its lack of response to the needs of its residents. Many of its areas lack water supplies, a sewage network, and paved roads, and there are no public parks or playgrounds.
The camp also suffers from a lack of classrooms, services and other social facilities, in addition to weak security and the spread of crimes and drugs.
There is only one police station in the camp, which was established in 2017 and is located outside the wall next to the military checkpoint at the western entrance to the camp, and a very limited number of police personnel work there.
Because of the mixed composition of its population, between permanent residency granted to the people of Jerusalem and Palestinians from the West Bank who hold blue IDs, Israel besieges it at all times, and it has a checkpoint and streets leading to the Qalandiya checkpoint from the Anata side, and another checkpoint towards the town of Shuafat and Jerusalem.
If we add to that the separation wall that surrounds it, the Shuafat camp is under siege at all times, and it looks like a large dungeon, which is a microcosm of what Israel wants Palestinian life to be like inside Palestine.
