Israeli crackdown on Jerusalem refugee camp ignites unrest

Israeli security forces set up checkpoints that choked off the only exit and entry points of Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, bringing life to a standstill for its estimated 60,000 residents

A line of cars snaked through the garbage-strewn streets of the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem, as Palestinians waited to pass an Israeli checkpoint.

Alaa Gharab was sunk down behind the steering wheel at an intersection that resembled a ragged war zone, littered with burnt tires, gutted appliances and the charred carcass of a car.

It was the first time she could leave the camp since last Saturday night, when a Palestinian gunman fired at the checkpoint from close range, killing a 19-year-old female Israeli soldier and severely wounding a security guard before disappearing toward Shuafat.

The attack prompted a large-scale and ongoing manhunt. As part of the search, Israeli security forces choked off the camp’s entry and exit points, bringing life to a standstill for its estimated 60,000 residents.

The restrictions set off an explosion of anger in Palestinian neighborhoods across the city. Palestinian shops shuttered in protest by day and crowds of young men skirmished with Israeli troops by night — the fiercest unrest in months. Clashes in Jerusalem, the holy and bitterly contested city, became a rallying cry last year that triggered a bloody 11-day Gaza war.

“No one could go to work, go to the hospital, get food, go out,” Gharab, a 24-year-old nurse, said from her car window. “Everyone was scared. Everything stopped.”

The restrictions eased on Thursday, allowing food and supplies to enter and residents to return to work in the city. But the outrage was undimmed in Jerusalem’s only refugee camp — a neighborhood long left in a vacuum of governance.

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, a Jerusalem deputy mayor, described the closures as a matter of security.

But to camp residents, it felt like a siege. “It was like being in prison," said 14-year-old Sadeen Rajabi, who stayed home from school for the week because the difficulty of crossing and her parent's fears for her safety.

Even in normal times, Shuafat is a lawless slum full of smoldering garbage heaps and lacks municipal services. The camp falls within the Jerusalem municipal limits, but outside the hulking separation barrier that Israel says it built to stem militant attacks from the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have decried the barrier, which often slices through communities, as a land grab.

After the 1967 Mideast war, Israel annexed the eastern, Palestinian-populated half of Jerusalem and declared the entire city its capital in a move not recognized internationally. The government expanded the municipal limits far past the Old City, home to Jerusalem's holy sites, taking in far-flung Palestinian villages like Shuafat and the adjacent refugee camp. At the time, the camp had just a few thousand residents.

Anger has been building across the Israeli-annexed sector of the city, where many Palestinians say they feel abandoned by Israel. Residents complain of home demolitions and the near impossibility of obtaining Israeli building permits. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem pay Israeli municipal taxes but receive a fraction of the services that Jewish residents do.

The feeling of being in limbo is perhaps no more acute than in the Shuafat camp, one of several Palestinian neighborhoods that are formally part of Jerusalem, but are on the “West Bank side” of the separation barrier. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited control in parts of the West Bank, has no jurisdiction. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees runs part of the camp, providing educational and sanitation services.

Hassan-Nahoum acknowledged the challenges of providing services in the camp. She said the city fears attacks on its personnel working on the other side of the barrier. “It’s a very difficult thing to control,” she said.

Omar Sarhan, a shop owner restocking his shelves on Thursday for the first time this week, said the camp feels cut off from the city. “We do not feel we're in Jerusalem,” he said. “We have nothing.”

Water and electricity shortages are frequent. Sewer services are unreliable. Roads are potholed. There's virtually no garbage pickup. Israeli police rarely enter to crack down on surging crime.

The road into the rest of Jerusalem is both a lifeline and a potential chokepoint. Most residents have permanent residency in the city, meaning they have freedom of movement, unlike West Bank Palestinians who need special entry permits.

But the access is strictly controlled. When Israeli security forces escalated searches at the main Shuafat checkpoint this week, residents said it upended their lives. Patients couldn't reach Israeli hospitals because of hours-long waits. Ambulances idled in snarled traffic. Deliveries of food and medicine stopped. Most of the camp's 15,000 children missed school.

Residents shared stories of desperation.

“Yes, the attacker is from the camp, but why are tens of thousands of people held accountable?" said Hassan Alequm, a health official who reported that 50 patients with kidney disease missed their dialysis appointments at Israeli hospitals this week.

Dr. Saeed Salameh said his medical center was flooded with requests to help patients who couldn't make it to hospitals. The clinic offered painkillers until it ran out IVs. Then it was struck by tear gas canisters and forced to close.

Hiba, a 50-year-old hepatitis patient with diabetes who gave only her first name, hadn't received an insulin injection in five days.

“I couldn't leave my house because of the gas,” she said, her face ashen.

Many families stayed inside as tear gas veiled the camp. But thousands rushed into the streets to confront Israeli security forces in what residents described as the worst clashes in recent memory. Israeli forces unleashed rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas on young men hurling stones and firebombs.

“It was the first time I've seen that kind of violence in the camp,” said Mohammed Salah, 32.

On Wednesday night, clashes spread across east Jerusalem neighborhoods.

The surging tensions in Jerusalem come as violence rises across the West Bank, where more than 120 Palestinians have been killed so far in 2022 — the deadliest round of fighting in seven years.

Confrontations have escalated since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel last spring. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others uninvolved in clashes have also been killed.

Palestinians want the occupied West Bank and Gaza as territories for their future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. But adjacent to Shuafat refugee camp and other Palestinian enclaves neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israel has built Jewish settlements home to some 220,000 people.

Israel's police said Friday it was calling up reserve units of the border police — a paramilitary force known for using tough tactics to quell Palestinian unrest.

“The fighters will continue to act with a heavy hand, using all advanced means, against violators of public order,” said Amir Cohen, the commander of the border police.