The number of Palestinians living in camps here in Lebanon has doubled while the authorities have outlawed camp area expansion. Consequently camp residents have had to add rooms skyward such that today more than one third of the houses never are touched by sunlight and more than half of the alleys are so narrow that cars cannot pass and even the moving furniture is blocked forcing it to be lifted to roofs by rope. Camp alleys can barely accommodate two people walking side by side with hundreds of dangerously exposed electric cables above their heads surrounded by dilapidated infrastructure. In the past 36 months more than two dozen camp residents have been electrocuted in Burj al Barajneh camp near Beirut's airport. The power supplying camps is cut more than 12 hours a day while three quarters of the refugees live below the poverty line. This as drug use and respiratory and other diseases rise along with unemployment, school dropout rates and Palestinian youth sense that that they have no future.
Most experts who have studied this subject argue that these problems would be resolved if Palestinians were allowed the right to work. Indeed studies by the UN International Labor Organization (ILO) and several economic studies by Universities and others have shown that if Palestinian refugees were granted the right to work Lebanon's ailing economy would dramatically grow and Lebanon would achieve much needed infrastructure rehabilitation, including electricity, water, garbage collection and disposal, road repairs, and medical services.
A related cause of growing unrest in Palestinian camps, as they careen toward violent explosion, is the poisonous 18 sect sectarianism based Lebanese society-fueled the past decade by the growing Sunni-Shia conflict. Some who claim to be part of a "Resistance" have exhibited no willingness to act to improve camps conditions, partly because Palestinians are nearly all Sunni or Christian. Partly because they wait instructions from their regional sponsors. A true Resistance would support the camps in their struggle and recognize that resistance begins with supporting the camps, while using their power in Parliament to provide assist with infrastructure, employment opportunities and health and educational services.
These appalling conditions attract outsiders with non-camp agendas and today they are posing great dangers. For example, more than 5 thousand fugitives wanted by the Lebanese judiciary reportedly reside inside Ein al-Hilweh camp on various charges, some expired. The Lebanese Army (LAF) continues to pressure camp residents with erected walls, sand barriers, and checkpoints and prohibit home improvements while restricting the work and activities of UNRWA.
Another factor is the failure to achieve a unified Palestinian political, military, and security administration to enforce order and bar outsiders who enter and align with various Palestinian factions while encouraging in-fighting, especially between Fatah and Islamic groups which Fatah has failed to eradicate. This is exacerbated by the lack of Lebanese government interest, including most political factions in the living conditions of Palestinian refugees and in improving, their economic and social conditions. At the same time they ignore camp security and any camp development planning. There is also a growing radicalism in Ein al-Hilweh and some of the other 12 camps in Lebanon influenced by conflicts and divisions in the region.
Ein al-Hilweh has often experienced the entry of fugitives to the camp, such as Badi' Hamadah, who killed three Lebanese soldiers in 2002 and was later executed, Fadil Shaker, who entered the camp after the clashes in Saida's suburb of 'Abra in 2013, and Shadi al-Mawlawi, who took up residence in the camp in 2014. For years the Palestinian factions have failed to apprehend them, and today some enjoy the support of certain groups in the camp. Recently there has been an increase in the number of Islamist fugitives in the camps from various countries in the region who are targets of the global "war on Terrorism."
To its credit, the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) in Ramallah has tried to apprehend and prosecute or kill the Islamist fugitives in Lebanon's camps and elsewhere. But their efforts have been largely stymied by the fact that while Fatah seeks to regain its diminishing 'zones of influence" in some of the camps they have faced opposition from many factions who oppose the political, social, and ideological orientations and who reject many of the policies and programs of the Ramallah based PLO.
Against this dismal backdrop, and the deprivation of the most elementary civil rights to work and to own a home, the situation in Lebanon is increasingly likely to explode, first in Ein al-Hilweh, next in Shatila and then perhaps Bedawi camp near Tripoli and Rasheidiyeh camp in Tyre, followed by others.
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