West Bank campus a dystopian shelter for Palestinians uprooted again

Between a stadium and flower fields where goats now graze, the children play to escape boredom. They have no school to go to since the Israeli military ordered residents to leave the Jenin refugee camp more than two months ago.

Mohammed Shalabi, a 53-year-old father who is among several hundred Palestinians sheltering at the university campus in Jenin city, recalled the day he heard that special Israeli forces were inside the camp.

"Everyone knows that when the army enters, it destroys the infrastructure, even the cars," said the municipal worker.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from the northern West Bank since Israel launched the offensive dubbed "Iron Wall" on January 21 in the area.

Shalabi first left Jenin camp for nearby villages before authorities offered accommodation at the now vacant premises of the Arab American University, one of the leading institutions in the West Bank.

Shalabi said he has avoided "discussing all of this" with his 80-year-old father to protect his fragile health.

"But he understands, and sometimes he cries, because he lived through the Nakba, and now this..." said Shalabi, referring to the mass displacement of Palestinians in the war that accompanied Israel's creation in 1948.
No return
Now forced to leave their homes in the Jenin refugee camp, residents fear a repeat of the collective trauma they inherited.

The United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, provides aid but recent Israeli legislation barring coordination with Israeli military authorities has complicated its work.

The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank, lacks the funds to help.

Many international organisations are already focusing much of their efforts in the Gaza Strip, a separate Palestinian territory where the Israel-Hamas war since October 2023 has created a dire humanitarian crisis.

"No one is interested in what's happening here," said a social worker who often visits the displacement shelter at the university to hand out blankets, food or grocery money.

Public services like rubbish collection are rare or virtually non-existent. Many displaced residents have asked for a temporary school to be set up for the children but to no avail.

Most shops are closed, and the nearest supermarket is a 20-minute walk away.

All the while, Israeli army bulldozers operate in the Jenin camp, leaving behind a trail of destruction.

"They told us we no longer have a home, and that we won't be returning to the camp," said displaced resident Umm Majd.

Some camp residents who attempted to go back say they were turned away.

In early March, an UNRWA official spoke of growing concerns that "the reality being created on the ground aligns with the vision of annexation of the West Bank."
'Day by day'
The new, makeshift camp has come into being on the university campus in what appears like a dystopian landscape.

The campus buildings carry names that give them an international and prestigious air, like Casa Bella, Concorde and Dubai.

But many of them, not long ago busy with students, are abandoned.

Others have become home to families of the displaced who now cram into tiny studio apartments that served as campus housing.

The families cook on gas stoves and sleep on foam mattresses that have to be put away every morning to create space.

"We have 20 percent of the life we had in the camp," said Umm Majd, sharing a two-person room with three others.

Farmers bring goats to graze in fields around the campus.

Many of the students that used to fill the university halls and dorms before the Gaza war were Palestinian citizens of Israel, who generally stopped crossing into the West Bank for their studies.

Eateries in the area are either closed down or being refurbished, the sign of economic hardships across the West Bank that have worsened throughout the Gaza war.

"We live day by day. There's no outlook because of the lack of work and resources," said Ahmad Abu Jos, 30.

His baby boy Mustafa is learning to walk in the tiny apartment space, filled with the smell of detergents and cooking.

The boy's mother, Rama Abu Jos, said: "We left the camp, but not of our own free will. We hope to return home. No one likes life here."