Article74 Magazine

On 31 March 1998, one day after the evacuation date set for SUMOUD Camp (ARTICLE 74/23 March 1998) Israeli authorities arrived at the camp to inform the remaining Palestinian families at the site that their tents and shacks were constructed without permits and would be demolished within 5 days. The following day, 1 April, Israeli municipal officials along with a large contingent of Israeli police arrived at the site accompanied by 4 bulldozers to evict the residents of the camp. Approximately 10 families had already moved their belongings to an unfinished concrete building in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The building is also owned by the Islamic waqf. The remaining families at the camp were given 3 hours to remove their belongings. 

Within 2 hours, the bulldozers began to demolish the remaining tents and wooden shacks. Not all of the families were able to remove all of their belongings from their homes at SUMOUD Camp. The families moved to the same empty building in East Jerusalem. The residency and housing problem of the families remained unresolved despite the 30 day postponement of the camp’s evicition at the end of February. 

Update: Living Conditions in the New SUMOUD Camp 

Approximately 11 Palestinian families from the original SUMOUD Camp who have no other place to live in Jerusalem are now living in the large unfinished school owned by the Islamic waqf. Some families continue to visit the new site while the remaining number of families from the SUMOUD Camp were able to find alternative housing and received some assistance from the Orient House. Several families, however, have been forced to move outside the expanded boundaries of the Jerusalem municipality and are therefore liable to lose their right to live in Jerusalem. 

The families living at the new SUMOUD site have suffered a further deterioration in their living cinditions. There is no electricity and no permanent sanitiation. The three month rental contract for the portable lavatories at the old tent site expired near the end of March and they were removed prior to the demolition of the site. Several weeks after the families moved into the building, however, the Orient House provided four portable lavatories. Prior to that, the Sheikh Jarrah mosque adjacent to the new SUMOUD site allowed the families 24 hour access to its lavatory. The mosque is also providing the families with running water. Residents have also acquired a portable generator for electricity. 
 

Inside the unfinished concrete shell of the school the families have constructed rough living quarters with wood, canvas and plastic salvaged from the old SUMOUD Camp. The Orient House also provided some wood for the construction of living quarters. Approximately 60% of the camp’s construction material along with some personal belongings including a refrigerator and cupboards was destroyed during the demolition and hauled to the Jerusalem garbage dump. 

There are more than 60 children living at the new site. Many of the men from the camp were unable to work in the days leading up to the demolition of the old SUMOUD Camp out of fear that they would be away when the Israeli police and bulldozers arrived to destroy their tents and shacks. The financial situation of the families was especially difficult during the time of the Eid al-Adha holiday. 

The families decided to move to the empty, unfinished school owned by the waqf to avoid potential conflict with private Palestinian property owners in East Jerusalem. If the families leave Jerusalem to find more affordable housing, they will lose their residency rights in the city as they will no longer be able to demonstrate that Jerusalem is their “center of life” - the central criterion used by the Israeli Interior Ministry to determine Palestinian residency rights in the city. The housing shortage in East Jerusalem, lack of town planning schemes, difficulties in getting building permits and their high cost are part of a well-documented Israeli policy of housing discrimination which aims to reduce the number of Palestinians in the city. 

Residents of the SUMOUD Camp have expressed frustration regarding the lack of moral and material support for their situation. Representatives of the Orient House and local NGOs were not present at the old camp site during the demolition. An official from the waqf did visit the site after the families moved into the building but residents expressed unhappiness at the treatment they were given. While the waqf has permitted the families to set up housing on its land and now in a waqf building, it has been unwilling to assist residents in obtaining basic necessities, like a water line, that may lend a degree of permanence to the SUMOUD site. 

In a previous meeting at the Orient House, camp residents pointed out that their presence at the old SUMOUD Camp site assisted the Orient House in raising the issue of the confiscation of residency rights from Palestinians in Jerusalem, Israeli housing discrimination in the city and also benefited the waqf which received the go-ahead from the Israeli municipality for several projects on the site, including the construction of a center for the disabled. Camp residents have been told that the Orient House would not let them down, but they are still waiting for some assistance in resolving both their immediate needs and the larger issue of finding alternative housing in Jerusalem - their hometown. 

In the meantime, an ad-hoc group of Palestinians and internationals have begun providing supplementary education for the children in the camp. Between four and six individuals visit the camp several times a week to teach English, Arabic, Hebrew and math. Some of the students are unable to attend school because they are not registered on their parent’s Jerusalem ID card (ARTICLE 74/23 March 1998). The group also spends a portion of their time listening to the concerns of the SUMOUD camp families, hoping to combine education and grass-roots advocacy to highlight the effect of Israeli policies in Jerusalem which are aimed at reducing the number of Palestinians living in the city.