In this episode Anna discusses the Palestinians refugees in Iraq. She is a student journalist with us on a placement organised by the Oxford University Career Services. This article was edited using the Hemingway Editor.
🎧 listen to Anna’s backstory here - she discusses her motivation & research as well.
Forgotten Refugees: Displaced Palestinians in Iraq
Fleeing fighting, persecution, and danger. Leaving behind belongings, family, and roots. These are just some of the challenges faced by political refugees. It’s painful to even imagine going through the process of displacement. Imagine living through it, twice.
It is inappropriate, and even dangerous, to homogenise Palestinian people. Each refugee experience is unique. Yet it is this shared resilience and hope borne out of oppression that forms the backbone of what it is to be ‘Palestinian’.
Waves of Palestinian Migration
In 1922, the Palestinian census listed 18 Palestinians as living in Iraq. Since then, there have been three key waves of Palestinian migration to Iraq in the last century. The first came immediately after the creation of the state of Israel, known among the Palestinian community as the ‘Nakba’ (catastrophe). Approximately 5000 refugees, predominantly from Haifa and Jaffa, accompanied the Iraqi army who had been fighting in Palestine on their return home. The conflict in 1967 (known as the Six-Day War, or the ‘Naksa’ (setback) brought the second and largest wave of Palestinians to Iraq. The third wave followed the 1991 Gulf War, when the Palestinians who had been residing in Kuwait fled after the Iraqi invasion. Prior to 2003, between 34,000 and 40,000 Palestinians were estimated to be living in Iraq. This number now lies between 4000 and 10,000. Every wave of Palestinians arrived with a short-term stay in mind. The hope for a return home persists to this day.
Once in Iraq
Life for the Palestinians in Iraq significantly improved compared to the oppression and occupation in their homeland, up until 1990. They were almost equal to the native Iraqis and had full access to services like healthcare, education, work, and government-owned housing. Contrary to the terror associated with his name, Saddam Hussein’s government allowed Palestinians to be granted Iraqi residency. Their luck soon changed, however, after UN sanctions were placed on Iraq between 1990 and 2003. Palestinians soon suffered restrictions on jobs, investment, marriage, and could not be issued Iraqi citizenship or own property. After 2003, the situation for Palestinians deteriorated even further. Although US sanctions were lifted that year, this was followed by an eight-year American-led invasion aimed at eliminating the weapons of mass destruction supposedly held in the country. This conflict came to be known as the Iraq War. During this time, Palestinians suffered discrimination, eviction by armed militia, and violence. On 16th March 2006, Muhammad Hussain Sadiq was strangled to death by unidentified armed men. He was a Palestinian barber, seeking refuge in Baghdad. It wasn’t just individuals who were targeted: majority Sunni Palestinian neighbourhoods were bombarded and attacked. Homes were destroyed. Palestinians were arrested, tortured, kidnapped, and even killed. Militia and some minority groups resented the ‘privileged’ treatment of the Palestinians during the Saddam era, suspecting they were in support of Sunni militant groups and the previous regime. Having fled violence and oppression in their native land just 55 years prior, the Palestinians were once again victims of persecution.
Yahia Mahmoud was born and raised in Baghdad, as were his parents. They are all Palestinian, his grandfather having fled alongside 700,000 Palestinians in 1948. Mahmoud and his family, including his two children, Gena and Mohammad, lived in Ramadi in central Iraq where he studied law and worked for UNICEF. But in 2015, the family had to escape violence from ISIL fighters in Ramadi. They ended up in Baharka camp, trapped as stateless, isolated refugees without the right to work or travel.
The refusal of the Iraqi government to grant Palestinians refugee status was arguably the most pressing reason to leave. This small group of people possessed a rare, in-between, dual identity. They were considered neither Palestinian nor Iraqi. They possessed no valid travel documents and thus could not leave the country without permission from the Minister of the Interior. Additionally, they could not seek refuge abroad like those coming directly from Iraq or Palestine. Ethnically Palestinian refugees born in Iraq were suddenly having to renew residence permits. Neighbouring countries generally kept their borders closed to fleeing Iraqi-Palestinians, and many ended up stranded in overpopulated camps in neutral areas near borders. Al-Tanf camp, lying in the neutral area on the Syrian-Iraqi border, was quickly overcrowded. Its residents did not have permission to enter Syrian territory, but couldn’t go back to Iraq. The UNHCR resettled some refugees in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, but this was a small-scale solution which did not help the majority of the refugees. The identity of a ‘stateless refugee’ was passed down from generation to generation, with children like Yahia Mahmoud growing up in refugee camps they were unable to leave. Mahmoud numbers among many second- and third-generation refugees who possessed a passport-like travel document, yet were unable to leave Iraq without a visa, let alone enter the occupied Palestinian territories. Iraq is not a signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention, meaning Palestinians are not protected and have no official status as refugees from Iraqi authorities.
And so, they fled.
Fleeing Iraq
At this point, remaining in Iraq was not a viable option for most Palestinians, and over two-thirds left. For many, the memory of fleeing their homeland was still fresh, or had been vividly passed down over one or two generations. The majority of native Iraqi refugees remained as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Iraq: there are some 1.2 million displaced Iraqis in the country. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Palestinians fled the country, mostly to Jordan or Syria. A 2007 UNHCR report stated that Iraqi-Palestinian refugees lacked the necessary documentation for freedom of movement and access to services. While Jordan accepted high numbers of Palestinians and Iraqis over many years, granting Palestinians Jordanian citizenship, their undefined status meant most Iraqi-Palestinians were refused entry. With Syria also refusing entry to Iraqi-Palestinians, camps in No Man’s Land on the Iraq-Syria and Iraq-Jordan borders became ‘home’ to a number of Palestinians fleeing Iraq.
As such, some refugees had no other option but to return to Baghdad and Mosul, where the situation remained volatile. New camps in Iraq were established. The Al-Awda camp near Baghdad lacked electricity, clean water, and adequate sewage systems. Yahia Mahmoud and his family are trapped in a similar camp near Baghdad. Their travel documents mean they cannot leave without a visa.
‘My future is already gone, but my children don't have any future here. We need to go to any country, just not Iraq; somewhere where we can be free without prejudice.’ - Yahia Mahmoud
Resettlement efforts continue to provide more challenges for refugees with dual identity than native Iraqis or Palestinians. Thousands remain in border camps or as IDPs in Iraq. Nevertheless, efforts have been made to improve their situation. The Al-Tanf camp, one of three camps for Iraqi-Palestinians in Syria, finally closed in 2010. The minority of residents were relocated to a new camp, Al-Hol in Syria, while over a thousand were able to resettle in third countries in Europe. In 2009 the United States granted entry to over a thousand Iraqi-Palestinians from various border camps. This was the largest ever Palestinian resettlement in American history.
Maintaining a sense of identity
Edward Said, the Palestinian-American author of Orientalism, says ‘[The Palestinian experience is] not an organised memory because we don’t have a state and we don’t have an organised, central authority. But if you look in every Palestinian household, into the third generation after 1948, you’ll find such objects as house keys, letters, titles, deeds, photographs, and newspaper clippings, kept to preserve the memory of a period when our existence was relatively whole. It is a strategy against historical erasure. It is a means of resistance.’ Throughout the last century, the very existence of Palestine and Palestinians has come under threat time and time again. This is not just due to the physical land and possessions that have been stripped from them. When multiple generations are born as refugees, a part of culture is threatened, and with it history, way of life, and heritage. It comes down to one word: identity. How do you maintain a sense of cultural identity if your parents had to flee the country, if you haven’t even been to your own land, and you’ve been forced to leave where you were brought up? The Palestinian identity is in many ways shaped and somewhat categorised by a mutually understood experience of suffering. Yet the nation’s population persists. A unique social, cultural, and political identity binds these people, regardless of how many times they have been displaced or where they have ended up. From one conflict to another, from one generation to the next, the world can learn from the undying spirit of the Palestinians.
‘We suffer from an incurable malady: Hope’ – Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian national poet
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