Scoop Exclusive: Siege Of Nahr el Bared Tightens

Heavy fighting continues unabated for the fourth week between the Lebanese army and the radical Islamist group Fateh al Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el Bared in North Lebanon. The Lebanese army is tightening its grip on the 2 square kilometre camp area, home to 40,000 Palestinian refugees, most of whom have fled to the neighbouring camp of Beddawi and to the Beirut camps of Chatila and Borj al Barajneh.

Relief organizations have deployed since the early days of the fighting, and are attempting to offer help to the thousands of refugee families living in crowded, insalubrious conditions in public spaces or with relatives who are often more impoverished.

Image: Inside Nahr el Bared Refugee Camp, by Tanya Traboulsi.

A large scale humanitarian crisis is silently unfolding as the Lebanese army is systematically destroying the Palestinian camp with artillery shelling. The army's strategy is to use heavy bombing to dislodge the radical Islamist fighters, who are mostly non-Palestinians and include Lebanese, Saudis and Yemenis. This has resulted in the physical destruction of most of the camp buildings and in the death and wounding of hundreds of innocent civilians.

Refugees continue to leave the Nahr el Bared camp, driven out by the lack of basic necessities, the absence of adequate shelters, the stench of unburied corpses, and the calls for evacuation of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Fuoad Siniora.

The official position of the Lebanese government is to end this crisis by military means, even if this means the complete destruction of the camp. In a pre-emptive media strike, the government has promised the reconstruction of the camp "according to modern norms" and the return of the refugees.

But for Palestinians from Nahr el Bared, these are empty promises coming from a Lebanese establishment that condones their systematic harassment at the hands of its security apparatus. Human Rights Watch has recently published a report documenting the abuse of Palestinian men fleeing the fighting in Nahr el Bared refugee camp.

Palestinians in Lebanon have been denied basic human rights for decades. They do not have the right to be employed in most professions. This leaves thousands of university graduates to seek menial jobs as daily laborers, when they can find them. Their freedom of movement is severely curtailed as they are often stopped at Lebanese security check points and subjected to abusive treatment. As a result, most Palestinians prefer to spend their days (and often their life) locked into the refugee camps, where they feel most secure.

This is why, in spite of the heavy bombing, of the destruction and of the death, many residents of the Nahr el Bared camp have not left yet. Every day, a small number of them trickles out of the camp, having reached their tolerance limit, and seek refuge in the Beddawi camp, a few kilometers away.

I have asked many refugees why they have stuck it out for so long in Nahr el Bared, in spite of the intensive artillery shelling and the large number of casualties. Some answered that they had to stay with a disabled elderly relative who could not be moved out as the Red Cross ambulances are unable to enter the camp. Others, mostly men, have said that they feared being arrested by the army and accused of being Fateh el Islam fighters. Many men told of being arrested, handcuffed and taken for 24-four hour muscled interrogation in the army's security casern. Some have not yet been released.

The Lebanese army has been operating under the assumption that the only reason for people to stay in the camps is to fight against it. But, according to the refugees themselves, there are other considerations that push people to endure bombing, shelling, and the threat of violent death. Displacement, they told me, is humiliating. Some of them have already been displaced 3 times: by the Israelis from their houses in Palestine in 1948; by the Lebanese militias from their shanties of Tall el Zaatar in 1976, and now from Nahr el Bared by the Lebanese army. Many prefer to die in their houses rather than start all over again.

The camps, in spite of their squalor and their poverty, are all they have. This is where they have established their social networks, where they have created Palestine away from Palestine. This is where they have retained the culture of Palestine, their habits, the food they ate and the accent they spoke. Refugees who have left the camp, they say, have lost more than they have gained. They have tried to integrate into Lebanon, and to forget their origins, but Lebanon has not accepted them. They have lost everything and gained nothing. They are still stopped and harassed at check points. Their children are singled out, and have to endorse another personality and reject their identity.

As one of the refugees succinctly put it: "Leaving the camp is like leaving Palestine another time. Every step taken out of the camp is a step away from Palestine. It is a step away from our rights to return to Palestine. We see the destruction of the camp not as the demolition of ugly, derelict dwellings, but as the destruction of all that is left of our culture, which has been passed on through 3 generations of refugees. This is worth sticking it out, don't you think?"

Rami Zurayk is a Professor of Ecosystem Management, American University of Beirut. The opinions expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the American University of Beirut. Interested in food, farming and rural society? You can view more of Prof. Zurayk's work at www.landandpeople.blogspot.com

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