Amman, Jordan – Inside Jordan, Ali has a visitor from the Gaza Strip. Outside, he is considered to be from Jordan.
“Why?” 35-year-old asks. “I am in the middle; not here, or there.
Although he was born and raised in Jordan, Ali has no Jordanian citizens. His ID identifies him as a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, with the help of his grandfather who fled the area during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
A small, plastic card is the only sign left that Ali has a “stranger” – a sign that bans almost every aspect of his life, from his job, to the car he drives, to the world of his children. He studied electrical engineering but, unable to find work in the field, worked in a medical laboratory in Amman testing the COVID-19 test. He says he will not vote, pays more than four times for his driver’s license and passport, and has to follow a long legal process before buying a house.
“Life goes on,” the father of two told Al Jazeera. Instead, you spend your whole life searching for a better, better world. About your children. I do not want my children to become part of the world around me. ”
“If you think I’m Jordanian, give me full citizenship,” he said. “If you think I’m a Palestinian, send me back to Palestine.”
‘Eternal economic prosperity’
When the West Bank was annexed by Jordan in 1950, its citizens were free to become citizens of Jordan. This did not include Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, who live under Egyptian rule, Jawad al-Anani, Jordan’s former labor minister, told Al Jazeera. During the 1967 war, refugees from the Israeli-occupied West Bank were living in Jordan, while those fleeing the Gaza Strip were not. When Jordan severed ties with West Bank in 1988, West Bankers who settled in Jordan in the 1950s before gaining citizenship, while Gaza remained a foreigner, al-Anani said.
For the non-citizen Palestinian refugees in Jordan, including about 175,000 who were deported to Gaza in 1967, and another 18,000 who fled war-torn areas in Syria, there is no public benefit, “said Widian Othman, Jordan’s spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Security Council. Works for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
This leaves UNRWA – a low-income, low-income organization – their only support group to turn to. In Jordan, UNRWA runs 161 schools for about 120,000 students, 25 hospitals and provides food and funding to the nearly 60,000 most at-risk Palestinian refugees, essential for non-Jordanian nationals, Othman said.
A UNRWA donor meeting, which took place in Brussels in mid-November, left the agency with about 40 percent of the required funding, said UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai.
“UNRWA’s lack of funding has created serious problems for the organization, staff and refugees,” Alrifai said. “It has hindered UNRWA from being able to upgrade and transform its operations.”
The UN provides assistance to 5.7 million Palestinian refugees – mostly descendants of those who were expelled from towns, villages and towns in Palestine in 1948 and 1967, and ended up in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
About 40 percent of the refugees live in Jordan, according to UNRWA figures.
“The fact that Palestinian refugees are suffering from the oldest unresolved conflict in the region is contradictory because there is a shortage of donors and a gradual reduction in their problems and issues,” Alrifai said.
UNRWA delays payments, cuts profits
Last month, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned 28,000 workers that the union. could not pay his November salary on time.
About 90 percent of UNRWA staff are Palestinian refugees, according to Alrifia.
The headmaster of the UNRWA school in al-Baqa’a camp, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, said teachers were disappointed.
“Everyone has families, debts, debts,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that due to late payment he has difficulty buying fuel on his daily commute, half an hour from Gaza Camp. He spoke in support of the US Alliance, but said that maintaining some independence was important.
He said four of the 28 teachers at the school had dropped out because they did not receive their salaries. In crowded places where each class has about 50 students, such an absence disrupts the education of hundreds of children, he said.
The pay cut was led by three people who sat down with one strike, in November alone, to protest UNRWA’s failure to pay enough and provide benefits to workers here and in retirement, according to Jordan Labor Watch.
“We feel compelled that UNRWA wants to reduce or suspend its activities,” said Mohanad, a teacher at al-Baqa’a Camp School, who used his first name.
Although November payments were made last week, Mohanad expressed fears that December payments would be delayed.
Population growth, budget deficit
UNRWA is now entering its 72nd working year. Tents that once housed Palestinian refugees were later converted into concrete houses, which required the camp to grow, without leaving.
The camps now resemble poor, densely populated cities; many concrete houses for generations of families.
In the overcrowded al-Baqa’a camp, more than 129,000 refugees live in an area of 1.4 square kilometers (0.54 square miles).
“The population is growing, but jobs are declining,” Mohanad said.
He added that UNRWA provided school uniforms, books, pens, food and vitamins for students – but now these services are no longer provided.
Meanwhile, overcrowded and understaffed rooms have left a small space for schools to implement any precautionary measures against the COVID-19 epidemic.
“There is no coronavirus here,” Mohanad said sarcastically.
According to Othman, UNRWA’s spokesman in Jordan, the financial crisis means the agency is unable to recruit staff and its operations are under limited control.
Garbage piles up outside Gaza Camp. In the pictures behind the rubble there are large buildings and ridges – a shape that contrasts with what is inside the camp. [Hanna Davis/Al Jazeera]Ahmad Hamada al-Bashetee grew up in the so-called Gaza Camp – the poorest of the 10 Palestinian refugee camps run by UNRWA in Jordan.
“Cleaning work has gotten worse here,” he said. “The area is very tight, which needs to be cleaned up in 24 hours. But cleaners come in the morning.”
Al-Bashetee also saw a long wait for UNRWA-run hospitals – services he relied on due to the rising cost of medical services outside of Jordan.
“There are problems with hospitals,” he said. “As the population continues to grow, hospitals have become the same. There are a lot of people. ”
Under politics
The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been occupied by Israel for more than 50 years, adding to the suffering of Palestinian refugees living in difficult areas in neighboring camps.
“UNRWA is being severely harassed by politicians who want to undermine its legitimacy and undermine its value, in order to undermine the rights of Palestinian refugees,” said Alrifai, a UNRWA spokesman.
In 2018, former US President Donald Trump cut all US funding for UNRWA. As Biden’s leadership support resumed, it was replaced by a “significant reduction” in funding from several countries, including the United Kingdom and the Gulf states, al-Rifai said.
Opponents of UNRWA say the host countries should pack up.
“It is incredible that 50 years later, the people of Gaza are the only Palestinians in Jordan who can not find Jordan,” al-Bashetee said.
There are fears among the Jordanian people that if you free Palestinian citizens from Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan will become “another country” in Palestine, said al-Anani, a former labor minister.
Today, about half of Jordan’s population is from the West Bank-Palestine, al-Anani said. However, this is a “nonsense” comparison, he said, adding that the government does not take into account the realities of those who belong to Palestine.
“UNRWA will continue to provide protection and assistance to Palestinian refugees in the Near East until a solution can be found – that is, a participatory political process,” Alrifai said.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, UNRWA’s operations have become increasingly difficult, given the growing number of campers, unemployment rates and rising unemployment rates.
Al-Bashetee has been out of work for seven months; its vague legal status brings with it serious consequences.
“The first thing employers ask me is if I am Jordanian,” he said.
Her role as a refugee – though she has never been to the Gaza Strip – has also presented challenges to her life and her unresolved dreams, including when she wanted to marry a woman she met at a university who was a Jordanian citizen.
He says: “When I asked her to marry me, her family disapproved because I was Gazan. “They said: ‘You have no citizenship, you have no health insurance, so you have no means of supporting our daughter.'”
