Nahr al-Bared Camp: Two Years under Siege

[LebDocNCali]

We can start by giving them residency permits to know their numbers, movements and give them the oppotunity to make a decent living. With the residency permit they can stay or leave, but they can never vote or carry citizenship.

[SputNik]

I don't think our fellow Palastenians are living under conditions better or worse than people in bika3, 3akar, hermil, and many other locations in Lebanon. With all my respect to the pain they go through, i'd rather call for rights for Native lebanese before foreigns that a huge percentage of them brought nothing but War to my country.
I hope one day they return to their original place and enjoy their full rights, but as far as for their residency in Lebanon, this is as good as it gets as long as the majority of the Lebanese are living a similar life.

[Dry Ice]

Reconstruction work for Nahr al-Bared set to begin
Rebuilding of 150 structures in phase one will take one year

By Michael Bluhm
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, August 12, 2009



BEIRUT: A contractor will soon begin laying the foundations for the reconstruction of Palestinians’ homes destroyed at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp during the battle in mid-2007, officials for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told The Daily Star on Tuesday. The first part of the rebuilding effort – of a sector with some 150 structures, including housing for about 500 families – will take about a year to complete, meaning that refugee families will return to their homes next summer, about three years since the conflict erupted in May 2007, said Charles Higgins, UNRWA’s project director for Nahr al-Bared. More than three months of fighting between the Lebanese Armed Forces and Fatah al-Islam militants largely leveled the camp, which had officially been home to more than 31,000 Palestinian refugees.

The $18.1 million contract with Al-Jihad for Commerce and Contracting is for the reconstruction of one of eight sectors to be rebuilt in the old camp: the area nearest the sea which suffered the heaviest damage during the 15-week conflict, Higgins added. All of the camp’s residents eventually fled Nahr al-Bared during the fighting, which killed 168 soldiers and more than 220 militants, as well as 42 civilians.

About 3,100 families of Nahr al-Bared’s official count of 5,449 families have moved back into the new camp – the area between the old camp and the coastal highway – although many of those are former inhabitants of the old camp who are renting accommodations in the new camp, Higgins said. Another 756 families are living in temporary, one-room housing units erected by UNRWA in the new camp, Higgins said.

UNRWA has raised $102 million of the $328 million necessary to rebuild the old camp, an amount “ample” to cover the work planned in the coming months, said UNRWA senior fundraising executive Peter Ford. UNRWA had planned to collect donations over a number of years for the reconstruction, which Lebanese and UNRWA officials estimated would last until April 2012, Ford added. The Lebanese state is managing the $116 million reconstruction effort for the new camp and nearby Lebanese communities.

“The response on Nahr al-Bared has been pretty good,” he said. “It’s been a little slow in materializing, but we always knew it would be a long haul. We planned that it wouldn’t come all at once.

“Operationally, we don’t need an injection of funds for some months yet. We’re expecting that donors will come forward as operational requirements develop.”

With the plans to rebuild the camp in eight stages, UNRWA is hoping that seeing the completion of some sectors will encourage donors to contribute funds for the remaining reconstruction, Higgins said.

“Our strategy is that we go out there and show results on the ground,” he said, adding that the $102 million already pledged would suffice to rebuild two sectors and the majority of the third. “Our expectation is that success should generate further success.”

A pledge was made in May by Saudi Arabia to contribute $25 million for the rebuilding helped prod the US into announcing a $30 million donation last month, Ford said.

“Donors were hoping to see some concrete manifestation of Arab support,” he said. At a June 2008 donor conference in Vienna, then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said that four Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates – would fund half of all reconstruction costs.

The Saudi pledge has spurred another Gulf state into funding talks, which have reached an advanced stage, with UNRWA expecting to announce a new pledge in the coming weeks, Ford said.

“These guys in the Gulf are always looking over their shoulders at what the neighbors are doing,” he said. “We’re concentrating on one big donation at a time and counting on peer pressure to do its work.”

The summer’s fundraising activity has shown that the Gulf countries have gotten over their feelings from the time of the Vienna conference that their deep pockets were being taken for granted, Ford added.

“Some of the Arab donors felt that they were being bounced, and this turned them off for a while,” he said. “We’re now back on track.”

Meanwhile, the rebuilding schedule has fallen six months behind schedule because of unplanned delays caused by the need to excavate and document archaeological finds under the camp, Higgins said. Reconstruction of the first sector had been slated for January this year, but the contract with Al-Jihad began on July 1, he added. Concerning the original April 2012 completion date for the entire rebuilding process, Higgins said the end of the reconstruction would wind up being a function of fundraising, because UNRWA cannot sign contracts for any of the eights sectors until pledges turn into money.

UNRWA has finished removing more than 90 percent of the rubble remaining after the 2007 conflict, while uncovering more than 9,500 pieces of unexploded ordnance, Higgins said.

As or the displaced refugees, many are overcoming their initial doubts about whether Nahr al-Bared would ever be rebuilt, although much “ingrained skepticism” remains among a Palestinian populace with a history of conflict and displacement, Higgins added. “The ‘if’ question in people’s minds seems to have been answered,” he said.

The situation for the camp’s former residents has improved since the days of the fighting, but many problems persist, with the worst situation plaguing those living in the temporary, prefabricated housing units, said Samiha Wanas, head of community development project in Nahr al-Bared for the Palestinian NGO NABAA.

Families in the temporary units lack a supply of drinking water, and UNRWA generators provide electricity for three hours in the morning and four in the evening, she said. Each temporary housing unit is a 3-meter-by-6-meter room with corrugated metal walls.

Former camp inhabitants are also suffering economic difficulties, as commerce is slow to return to the camp, which had enjoyed vibrant trade as one of the least poor of Lebanon’s dozen Palestinian camps, she said. Palestinians continue to endure limited employment opportunities, as Lebanese law prohibits them from working in a number of mostly professional vocations, Wanas said.

About 3,100 families continue receiving the $150 monthly rental subsidies, and almost all are given monthly food parcels by UNRWA, Higgins said.

Schools in the new camp continue to operate with students attending classes in morning and afternoon shifts, and residents have been complaining about the education environment, Higgins said.

[Anisa]

GOD BLESS THE LEBANESE ARMY AND ALL THE MATYRS WHO DIED!
no lebanese should apologize for nahr al bared siege since we only acted in DEFENCE.
i will never be ashamed for those who put their lives on the line for LEBANON

the palestinians are the ones responsible for the camps, not lebanon not Syria or KSA.
So if they allow terrorists supported by either KSA or SYRIA to train in a place they have soverignty over against Lebanese. Than they have no else to blame but themselves when they pay the consquences for it.

We dont have the resources to give them a better life, we dont have the sources to give most Lebanese a better life, why should go out on limb AGAIN for them when all they have given us in return is problems and they are NOT lebanese.
I wish them all the best but not in our land.

[Dry Ice]

Nahr al-Bared becomes test case for security at camps

By Inter Press Service
Ray Smith
Wednesday, August 26, 2009


NAHR AL-BARED: Palestinian refugees at Nahr al-Bared in North Lebanon are living under tight military siege two years after a war destroyed the refugee camp. It has now become a test case for a new approach in Lebanon’s security policy toward Palestinian refugee camps. The 200,000 square meters camp is located on the Mediterranean coast, about 16 kilometers north of Tripoli. Adjacent to the highway leading from Beirut to the Syrian border, Nahr al-Bared is surrounded by the villages of Akkar, a neglected region dominated by Sunni Muslims and Maronite Christians.

A fierce battle between the militant group Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) raged in the camp from May to September 2007. The 15 weeks of fighting left more than 400 people dead, among them 170 soldiers and 54 civilians, while the core of Nahr al-Bared was completely destroyed, and the adjacent area partly ruined.

Since October 2007, more than half of Nahr al-Bared’s 30,000 residents have returned to the camp’s outskirts. Mostly living in makeshift dwellings and in the ruins of their homes, the refugees are waiting for the camp to be rebuilt. After several delays, reconstruction work finally started at the end of June 2009.

The Lebanese Army entered a Palestinian refugee camp in 2007 for the first time since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War, that was fought largely between Christian and Islamic groups. After the end of fighting at the camp in September 2007, the LAF have gradually handed over neighborhoods in the adjacent area to former residents, withdrawing their forces to the core of the camp. But several military checkpoints are in place at entrances. Barbed wire and concrete walls seal it off from its environs.

Lebanon hosts an estimated 200,000-250,000 Palestinian refugees. About half live at the 12 official camps. But unlike other Palestinian refugee camps in the country the two camps in north Lebanon – Beddawi and Nahr al-Bared – were not routinely encircled by military barricades earlier, and their residents enjoyed considerable freedom of movement.

Residents of Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi were allowed to bring in building materials, while restrictions still apply at the camps in the south, even if they have been slightly eased over the last few years.

Entry restrictions were introduced at Nahr al-Bared a few months before the fighting broke out. The LAF controls access to the camp by a strict permit system. Acquiring permits can take weeks, and they are often refused. Journalists, and staff of international NGOs and human rights organizations were barred, and can still face difficulty obtaining permits.

“Look, every one of us has an identity card that is accepted everywhere,” says Imam Sheikh Ismail at the Al-Quds mosque at the camp, pulling out his identity card. “Why do we need an additional permit? It’s the same information on both papers, exactly the same information.”

Othman Badr, journalist and outspoken member of the Residents’ Committee says the state has a right to place checkpoints where it wants to. But the permits are the main problem, he says. “It’s against all human rights that somebody needs a permit to return home or to invite friends.”

Entry restrictions seriously hamper efforts to revitalize Nahr al-Bared’s once flourishing economy. The camp was open for Lebanese customers attracted by its cheap prices. The camp’s businessmen used to import goods from nearby Syria, and selling them with a small profit margin. The camp became a thriving marketplace in Akkar.

Nahr al-Bared had about 1,500 micro, small and medium enterprises, mostly in trade and services, and some small manufacturing units. Since the end of the fighting, refugees have started to open small businesses on the outskirts of the camp.

“The problem is that we have hardly any customers from outside the camp,” says Mohammad Hamed, who has recently set up a small restaurant. “The money people spend here circulates only inside the camp. We have hardly any income.”

Hamed has sales of about $35 a day, with a profit margin of about $5. Similar accounts are heard throughout the camp.

Abu Ali Mawed, president of the local traders’ committee, says the siege of the refugee camp is the main obstacle. “The camp is a closed military zone. Our neighbors are not allowed to enter. How should the economy of the camp develop under these circumstances?”

NGOs working in Nahr al-Bared protested against the restrictions in a letter in January this year. Residents have voiced their opposition several times. Charlie Higgins, project manager for reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has demanded a review of army-controlled checkpoints.

But the Lebanese government does not intend to withdraw security forces from Nahr al-Bared once the camp is rebuilt. The camp will be placed under Lebanese sovereignty, meaning that the Internal Security Forces will be present inside Nahr al-Bared.

The Lebanese attempt to control the camp is directly connected with the issue of Palestinian arms. Several Palestinian groups maintain a military wing, equipped with guns, grenade launchers and hand grenades. Disarmament is firmly opposed within the camps. Given a history of frequent conflicts, weapons are considered essential for protection of the camps.

“Nahr al-Bared emerged as a test case of whether and how well Lebanon could assume security responsibility in the camps,” the International Crisis Group said in a report in February this year. So far, the total destruction of their camp, the looting and burning of their homes, the violent conduct of Lebanese soldiers at checkpoints, intimidation by military intelligence, restrictions on freedom of movement, and the siege have anything but persuaded the camp’s residents to trust the Lebanese security apparatus.

Nidal Abdelal from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine points to what he considers the real question over reconstruction of Nahr al- Bared. “Will it be a project for the enduring resettlement of the Palestinians in order to abolish their right to return? Under which political circumstances will the camp be rebuilt?”

[Dry Ice]

Palestinians plan protest over hold-up on reconstruction
By Omar Katerji
Special to The Daily Star
Thursday, October 01, 2009


BEIRUT: Palestinians are planning a demonstration in Beirut next month, as the State Shura Council prepares to reach a verdict on whether to halt the reconstruction of the war-battered Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli. The camp’s reconstruction was halted by the State Shura Council on August 13 for two months because of a suit filed by Michel Aoun, head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), saying that a construction process known as back-filling would endanger the antiquities uncovered below the camp.

The state has finished filing briefs for the council, while Palestinians have called a demonstration in Downtown Beirut for October 12, one day before the council’s two-month suspension expires.

On Wednesday, Economy Minister Mohammad Safadi met with UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) director for Lebanon Salvatore Lombardo to discuss the issue of frozen reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared.

Safadi said there was no need for the delay in the State Shura Council’s decision regarding the suspension of reconstruction work in Nahr al-Bared camp. Safadi also confirmed that the Palestinians’ situation had been raised with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri during consultations on forming a cabinet.

Charles Higgins, UNRWA’s project director for Nahr al-Ba*red, said he expected the council to decide soon, and UNRWA was pushing for a quick verdict. Higgins has said that design and consultation work and for construction have been largely completed, as well as most of the rubble removal and the clearance of unexploded ordnance.

“The back-filling process is merely one of eight parts to the reconstruction, and UNRWA has been continuing with the others during this delay,” Higgins stated.

Since the mid-2007 battle between the Lebanese Armed Forces and Fatah al-Islam militants destroyed much of the refugee camp, the Palestinians have feared their homes would never be rebuilt, akin to the fate of other former refugee camps in Lebanon such as Nabatiyeh, Talet Zaatar and Jisr al-Basha.

To call attention to the plight of Nahr al-Bared, a demonstration led by the Nahr al-Bared Reconstruction Committee has been organized for October 12 in Downtown Beirut to protest the delays in reconstruction.

Committee spokesman Amr Saadeddine said the archaeological finds under the camp were not the real reason for Aoun’s filing with the State Shura Council. Aoun was “trying to politicize the issue,” he added.

“The families involved have been displaced three times. We are talking about entire neighborhoods and complete villages uprooted and yet again without a place to live. All they want is a chance to reconstruct their homes,” said Saadeddine, referring to the tens of thousands of refugees who were displaced by the 2007 fighting. Nahr al-Bared had an official population of about 31,000 when the fighting erupted in May 2007. Only a few thousand residents have been able to return to their original homes, while the remaining displaced are living with relatives elsewhere, sharing or renting temporary accommodation near the camp or living in temporary housing erected by UNRWA near the camp.

Other refugee representatives have said Aoun’s suit is a gambit to buy time to extract concessions for his party in cabinet-formation talks, as the FPM leader had never before demonstrated such a keen interest in preserving Lebanese antiquities.

On the other hand, outspoken FPM supporter and former President of the State Shura Council Youssef Saadallah al-Khoury said Aoun did not have any political motives for filing the suit and was only trying to serve the public by protecting the country’s heritage.

“There are no political reasons behind the FPM’s appeal,” Khoury told The Daily Star on Wednesday. “One of the objectives of political parties is to protect public interest, and the FPM mentions this among its objectives. The appeal is in no form related to the naturalization of Palestinians.

“Just as it is unacceptable to cover Jeita Grotto or the ruins of Baalbek, it would be a shame to cover the ruins in Nahr al-Bared. It is not in the interest of the Lebanese government to des*troy the ruins, and Aoun is looking out for the public’s interest. Aoun should be thanked for his initiative to appeal.”

“Palestinians can reconstruct their camp, but not at the expense of the ruins,” Khoury added. “Other locations can be chosen to build the new camp. Palestinian interests shouldn’t be served at the expense of national interests. We can find a way to fulfil both.”

Meanwhile, the state representative leading the government’s case with the State Shura Council said the camp could not be rebuilt elsewhere.

Moving the camp site “is not on the table at all. The government has already stated its obligations to rebuild the camp and the surrounding areas are too crowded,” said former Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee. “The Palestinians will never accept [relocating the camp]. This is a matter of national security.”

[Shuyu3i]

Ziad Baroud said that the camps are an exploding time bomb. The government or future goverment that is better do something about the palestinians or we will have to get the army involved agaain.

[hannaalsayssa]

التحريات تؤكد ضياع 7 آلاف مصطاف في لبنان.تقارير خطيرة عن تنامي وجود الحركات الاصولية في المخيمات وعكار

ولعل ما يثير القلق والمخاوف من تنامي الحركات الاصولية وما تخطط لارتكابه في لبنان وفق ما ترى المصادر هو تأكد الاجهزة الامنية اللبنانية من عدم مغادرة عدد كبير من المصطافين العرب الاراضي اللبنانية حتى الساعة على رغم انتهاء التأشيرات المعطاة لهم. فبعد احصاء دقيق أجرته الاجهزة المعنية تبيّن ان قرابة 7 آلاف مواطن ومن جنسيات مختلفة من اصل 100 ألف دخلوا لبنان كمصطافين وبتأشيرات خليجية لم يغادروه. وانه بنتيجة البحث والتحري عن أمكنة وجودهم في الفنادق والشقق المفروشة وعناوين اقامتهم المدوّنة على تأشيراتهم لدى دخولهم مطاربيروت تم التأكد من ضياعهم على الاراضي اللبنانية وتحديدا في بعض قرى عكار النائية وفي المخيمات الفلسطينية

tayyar.org

THIS IS SCARY

[LFAB]

Originally Posted by Dr.Napoleon

ما أعرف ليش كل ما أسمعكن عم تحكوا عن الفلسطينية والمخيمات بحس أنكن عم تحكوا عن مجموعة ارقام أو عن طرش غنم أو عن حديقة حيوانات عم تهدد التوازن الطبيعي على الكرة الأرضية ...
لازم نتطلع على الواقع بالعينتين ..ونتطلع على هدول العالم ..كبشر قبل أي شي ..بشر الهن حقوق -حقوق الانسان المعترف بها عالمياً على الأقل- ..ووجودهن على الأرض اللبنانية وجود قسري نتيجة ظلم كبير... وصعب عليهم اكثر بكثير ممما هو عليكن
عايشين عيشة الكلاب لا شغل مثل الخلق ولا أكل ولا شرب ولا سكن ولا خدمات ولا تعليم ..بالإضافة للحصار الاجتماعي والنظرة العنصرية من كثير من الجهات -وبازعل كثير لما تكونو منها- ..
وإذا بدنا نقاوم التوطين ونحاربو ..مو يعني نعوفهم حياتهم ونقرفهم العيشة يلي عايشينها ونزيد على همومهم هموم ..
بالعكس احتضان اللاجئين الفلسطينيين وتأمين الحد الأدنى من حقوقهم الانسانية ودمجهم بالمجتمع اللبناني مع الحفاظ الكامل على هويتهم الفلسطينية وحقهم وواجبهم بالعودة لأرضهم رح يكون لمصلحة الكل ...ورح يخفف من البيئة يلي بتسمح للظواهر الشاذة من إرهاب وجرائم وسرقة وأمراض ..الخ..بالظهور

We tried to look at them in a different way..
Do i have to recall the "massacre of damour" ??
Do i have to remind u that the most dangerous militias are the palestinian militias in the camps...
find me one reason or any excuse for the palestenian weapons inside and outside the camps...
We tried to treat them like humans.. But they did NOT even try to treat us accordingly...

[SamerTayyar]

Originally Posted by LFAB

We tried to look at them in a different way..
Do i have to recall the "massacre of damour" ??
Do i have to remind u that the most dangerous militias are the palestinian militias in the camps...
find me one reason or any excuse for the palestenian weapons inside and outside the camps...
We tried to treat them like humans.. But they did NOT even try to treat us accordingly...

well said LFAB

the "Arab" countries sold the Palestenian cause and acknowledged Israel as a Jewish state, and seem to be concerned more with the shiites living in their countries than the invasion of the Aqsa mosque by Jewish radicals, Lebanon cant pay more than it already did for the Palestenian cause, we have enough internal problems, many of them due to the Palestenian presence on our soil.