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Ayman El-Masri
IOL Correspondent — Al-Baddawi Camp, Lebanon
If they give us palaces outside our camp, we will refuse to inhabit them. Take us back to Nahr Al-Bared and we will be ready to sleep in tents over the rubble and dirt. We demand the return to Nahr Al-Bared as a step closer to our land, Palestine. We have a homeland, and we want to return to it now more than ever.
These are the words with which the people displaced from Nahr Al-Bared reply to any journalist who asks about their patience and endurance of their suffering and tragedy.
Their insistence on returning to the camp surmounts that of a father holding on to his children. The young and the elderly of those refugees have long been chanting songs about their hope to return to their camp, as an interim goal before they can return to Palestine.
But things have changed — their sufferings have weakened them, and they have been forsaken by those who were one day close to them. All this has served to break their will.
The tragedy of those displaced people has reached a point where the grownups cry after they had been holding their tears. The youth who were not talking about immigration out of fear of their parents' wrath now say explicitly that they are ready to travel to any other country to finish their education and build their future, after their dreams have been shattered in Lebanon.
As for women, who generally do not care about politics, they send insults in bunches for the "guardians," whether in the Lebanon, Palestine, or international arena. They hold the Palestinian leaders from all political shades responsible for their conditions.
Internal Conflict
The phenomenon of talking about immigration is more apparent among degree holders, both graduates and students. This section of Nahr Al-Bared residents feel that "their past was deleted and their future is unknown," as Dr. Ra'id Al-Hajj, specialized in bone surgery, told IslamOnline.net (IOL).
He explains,
The camp has faced a great destruction and the people are morally down. Additionally, the people distrust all the sides involved in the Palestinian crisis, whether Palestinian, Arab, or international.
Dr. Al-Hajj revealed that the displaced people "live in internal conflict." On the national level, they refuse to betray their cause, as they are certain that refugee camps are linked to the right to return to Palestine and that this is a national duty. But in reality, their determination has been shaken, and they now wish to immigrate to any other country where they can live their lives normally as any other person in the world.
A member of an administrative department in the Union of Palestinian Doctors in Lebanon, Dr. Al-Hajj is active in relief work for displaced people and those returning to Nahr Al-Bared camp.
He is calling on the refugees to hold on, but deep inside — as he confided to IOL — he no longer feels there is a place for him in Lebanon. Talking about his fellow doctors, he said that if the door for immigration was opened, they would not think twice before traveling.
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Series of Adversities
The suffering of the Palestinians in Lebanon increases with the law that prevents them from practicing about 72 occupations in Lebanon, unlike any Arab or foreigner living there.
Moreover, Nahr Al-Bared incidents left negative social repercussions between the residents of the camp and the Lebanese surroundings. Some of the displaced people told IOL that they were subject to harassment when they went to some of the northern areas. "The Palestinian refugees are being held responsible for what has happened, though the people of Nahr Al-Bared camp were the greatest victims," Dr. Al-Hajj said.
A case was recorded of a girl student who was dismissed from a Lebanese school in Al-Minya region just because she is from Nahr Al-Bared camp.
All these circumstances leave the people of Nahr Al-Bared no choice but to strongly think of immigration.
Not in Lebanon
At the beginning of Nahr Al-Bared incidents, a group of young Palestinian refugees was formed. The motto of this group was "We want to live but not in Lebanon." They launched a website called wewanttolive.org, with the motto "We love life. We want to live but not in Lebanon."
The website included a call to join the group, and the first statement read,
We want to tell everyone that the living has become tough for us. We have lost many of our rights. Our ambitions were destroyed in the deadly silence that shrouds this civilized world.
The participants in this group asserted, "We want life in its real, human meaning wherever it is, for the sake of our humanity and identity. We wished to find this on the land of Lebanon, with all regard and gratitude toward this dignified, life-loving country."
When the word about this group and their website first spread, the youth groups and organizations of the civil society in Al-Baddawi camp showed dislike of the proposals of this group, which — Dr. Al-Hajj said — hit the core of the Palestinians' cause and their insistence on their right. They declared that they strongly refuse this group and its call.
But now, with the increasing adversities of the refugees (though they started to return to the camp), the immigration discourse is strongly present among the youth. The whispers that used to be hidden are now said out loud,
We want to immigrate and leave the country that wronged us.
But, ironically, immigration is not that available. Dr. Al-Hajj explained,
We've finally agreed to give up and accept the dispersion we refused for decades. But the dispersion wouldn't take us.
The foreign embassies in Lebanon refuse to accept the Palestinians as refugees. He added,
We have been expelled from our country, Palestine. We are living as refugees. We have been denied our civil rights in Lebanon, and our heritage [as Palestinians] is being erased. We lost our jobs and our future is obscure because of the latest incidents. Aren't we a distressed nation?
These words of one of the refugees express the tragedy that the Palestinian people live, especially the refugees of Nahr Al-Bared camp in Lebanon.
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