Neirab camp

Neirab camp or Al-Nayrab camp is a Palestinian refugee camp that was set up near the village of Al-Neirab near Aleppo, Syria, 13 km from Hama. It was created in 1948-1950 following the Nakba.^[1]

It is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria^[2], with a reported number of 23,469 people as of 2024.^[1] It is also considered one of the poorest.^[3]

History

The camp was created in 1948 to accomodate for Palestinian refugees that fled during the Nakba.^[1][4] Originally, the camp consisted of barracks used by allied troops during World War II, but it quickly grew outside of those, due to the number of refugees.^[4]

There were plans by the UNRWA to remove the camp in the early 1960s, but those plans didn't come to fruition.^[5] In 1988, it was already the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.^[6] In 2010s, the barracks were still seen by some refugees as a symbol of their origins and their struggles, even though most, if not all, of the barracks were destroyed since.^[4] The camp was described, around this period, as having “the most abysmal living conditions of all the Palestine refugees camps in Syria”, by the UNRWA.^[4] The Syrian Air Force engaged in raids inside the camp to target Hamas militants there, in the early 2010s.^[7]

A paramilitary group, called the 'Liwa al-Quds', was formed with people from the camp during the Syrian Civil War and was supportive of Bashar al-Assad.^[8] In 2016, the camp was cut from water supply during 80 days.^[9] The camp has suffered huge emigration, for example, it is considered that most of the Palestinian refugees managing to cross into Turkey from Syria are coming from two camps, Neirab and the nearby Ein Al-Tal.^[10]

Population

The population inside and on the surroundings of the camp grew quickly, and was at 13,032 people inside and 11,676 outside in 1988.^[6] As of 2019, it had a reported population of around 19,000 people,^[8] this number grew to a reported number of 23,469 people as of 2024.^[1] The population is mostly Sunni Palestinian.^[11] They hail mostly from the upper Galilee areas of the cities of Safdouka, Haifa and Tiberias, and from the villages of Al-Tira, Lubya, Tarhija, Hattin, Kwikat, the River, Safasaw, Al-Tajr, Al-Jash, Ain Ghazal, and others.^{[citation needed]} It is considered to be one of the poorer Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, alongside Ein Al-Tal, which is an offroot of Neirab.^[3][12]

Notable people

Neirab camp is the birthplace of the following people:

• Rima Hassan (born 1992), Palestinian-French jurist^[13][14][15]

References

1. Zochrot. "ذاكرات - مخيم النيرب". ذاكرات - مخيم النيرب. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
2. "NEIRAB CAMP". www.unrwa.org. from the original on 26 September 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
3. Assaly, Tania (2014-05-07). "Partition: Post-Syrian Society After the Fall of Assad". Public and International Affairs - Research Papers. hdl:10393/31052. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
4. Gabiam, Nell (2011). "Spatializing Identity: The Changing Landscape of Palestinian Refugee Camps". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2130401. ISSN 1556-5068. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
5. "Mu'askar and Shu'fat: Retracing the Histories of Two Palestinian Refugee Camps in Jerusalem". Institute for Palestine Studies. p. 51. from the original on 2024-01-29. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
6. Brand, Laurie (1988). "Palestinians in Syria: The Politics of Integration". Middle East Journal. 42 (4): 625. ISSN 0026-3141. JSTOR 4327836. from the original on 2023-12-03. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
7. Karmon, Ely (2013). "Hamas in Dire Straits". Perspectives on Terrorism. 7 (5): 121. ISSN 2334-3745. JSTOR 26297010.
8. Mousa, Ashraf (2019). "Palestinians in the Syrian Uprising: the situation on the ground". Syria Studies. 11 (2): 44–62. ISSN 2056-3175. from the original on 2022-05-12. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
9. "After 80 days of cut-out, running water arrives again to Al-Nayrab Camp houses". actionpal.org.uk. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
10. "No way out : the second nakba of Palestinian refugees from Syria escaping to Turkey". search.emarefa.net. p. 35. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
11. Cohen, Sam A. (2014-08-27). Future of the Middle East - United Pan-Arab States. Author House. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-4969-3493-2. from the original on 2024-05-06. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
12. Rempel, T. "UNRWA and the Palestine refugees: a genealogy of "participatory" development". academic.oup.com. from the original on 2023-11-23. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
13. Gendron, Guillaume. "Rima Hassan, la Palestine à cœur et à cris". Libération (in French). from the original on 2024-05-02. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
14. "" Être réfugiée palestinienne, c'est vivre en quête de son identité "". Association France Palestine Solidarité (in French). from the original on 2024-04-22. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
15. "Rima Hassan, la Palestine chevillée au cœur". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2024-01-14. from the original on 2024-05-01. Retrieved 2024-05-03.

36°10′24″N 37°13′14″E / 36.1733093°N 37.2204351°E / 36.1733093; 37.2204351