Palestinian girls, on average 10 years old, draw on the ground in the schoolyard, under the still hot November sun. They should represent what makes them happy. One shows a beach. The other, dawn. A third, a big smiling face. Everything seems simple at this school in the Shuafat Palestinian refugee camp, north of East Jerusalem, run by UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees. Classes are sparsely filled.
It is not that the establishments have received any strengthening of teaching capacities. The students simply abandoned the country school. In 2015, there were still 1,500, according to UNRWA figures. There are now only 700, or 6 percent, of all school-aged children living in the countryside, according to a study by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research. And the squares could be closed soon, following the Israeli Parliament’s vote on two bills on October 28, the effect of which is to technically end UNRWA activities in East Jerusalem.
Shuafat is unique. It is the only refugee camp within the municipal limits of Jerusalem, whose eastern part has been occupied since 1967 and annexed since 1980 by Israel. As such, it is beyond the reach of the Palestinian Authority. Since the camp’s creation in 1965, the site has long been an insurrectionary stronghold. Amid turmoil during the first Intifada (1987-1993), it erupted during the second (2000-2005). In response, Israel relegated Shuafat behind the separation wall built around the West Bank starting in 2003. To leave today, you have to go through a checkpoint.
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The camp is home to 17,000 registered refugees, approximately 40,000, and gave its name to this quasi-enclave, but it is only part of it. Three other sectors, also located on the eastern side of the wall, bring the total population of this neighborhood to around 80,000 inhabitants, mostly populated by Palestinians who find cheaper housing there than in the rest of Jerusalem. Around 80% of these inhabitants, with refugee status or not, have a blue identity card, a revocable resident status granted by the Israeli administration, which allows them to work, study and have access to the health system on the Israeli side.
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