Palestinians in Lebanon refugee camp ‘reliving the Nakba’

Palestinians in Rashidieh Refugee Camp in southern Lebanon were among the civilians ordered to evacuate by invading Israeli occupation forces prior to the area being bombed, the Palestinian Information Centre has reported. Local residents in 24 towns, villages and camps in southern Lebanon received evacuation orders, similar to what has been happening during the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Israeli displacement orders are chasing Palestinians wherever they are, keeping them within the ongoing cycle of displacement and depriving them of any stability even if they live outside their occupied homeland. They are, in effect, reliving the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and the creation of the Zionist state of Israel in their land.

The residents of Rashidieh, an estimated 25,000 people, were shocked to receive the forced displacement orders, especially since most of them are poor and needy. Their suffering is exacerbated by a very difficult displacement process.

Ibrahim Abu Al-Dahab, an official of the Popular Committee in Rashidieh, pointed out that around 15,000 people are still stuck in the camp due to the shortage of shelters. He said that this has left them fearing that their homes and neighbourhoods in Rashidieh will be targeted, as happened in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Moreover, said one resident of the camp, Muhammad Abu Naji, the people cannot afford transportation costs. He told the PIC correspondent that the camp residents are confused, not knowing what to do. They have just one option left, and that is to leave the camp on foot.

Although they have to respond to the displacement orders temporarily given their concerns about the children, women and the elderly, explained Abu Naji, they hope that they will all return to the camp and then return to Palestine. He praised the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, stressing the need to escalate resistance in the face of the “Zionist entity”, to force it to stop its genocide and criminality in Gaza and Lebanon.

Al-Rashidieh is one of 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It is located to the south of the Lebanese city of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast, and is the closest Palestinian camp to Palestine occupied since 1948. There are three refugee camps in Tyre: Rashidieh, the largest; Al-Buss; and Burj Shemali.

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