Nahr el-Bared Refugee Camp

Located sixteen kilometers north of Tripoli near the coastal highway in northern Lebanon, Nahr el-Bared (“cold river”) is considered the second largest Palestinian refugee camp in the country after Ayn al-Hilwa in Saida. In 2007, fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamist group Fatah al-Islam completely destroyed the camp and displaced nearly all of its residents. More than seventeen years later, the camp has yet to be fully rebuilt.

Establishment of the Camp

Nahr el-Bared was established by the League of Red Cross Societies in December 1949. It was the first Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon whose location was determined in advance by the state and humanitarian agencies before it took in refugees. The Palestinian refugees it ended up accommodating were a mix of those who had been repatriated from Syria after the Syrian government closed its borders to them in 1948 and those who were transferred there from the vicinity of Anjar in the Bekaa Valley and from Khan al-Askar in the old city of Tripoli. These refugees had originally come from the villages and towns of the Galilee in northern Palestine, particularly Sa’sa’, Saffuriyya, al-Damun, al-Sammu’i, al-Ghabisiyya, al-Shaykh Dawud, and Amqa, and the neighborhoods of the camp were named after these villages and towns as a symbolic affirmation of the camp residents’ identity and sense of attachment to their original homes in Palestine.

The camp was built on agricultural land far outside the city of Tripoli close to the el-Bared River, after which it took its name. The land on which the camp was built was made up of over twenty plots owned by more than sixty Lebanese, which were then leased out to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after it took over the running of the camp and providing essential services to the camp’s residents in 1950, following the United Nations General Assembly resolution to create this international agency. At that time, the camp consisted of basically hundreds of tents of various sizes that were spread out on its area (some of these were later used as classrooms). Initially, the leaders and notables of the villages and towns from which the refugees came handled the distribution of materials, rations, and tent tarpaulins that were provided by the Red Cross and later UNRWA, while the Lebanese gendarmerie was in charge of security.

Infrastructure

In the 1960s, the tents were gradually replaced with permanent housing. By the 1970s, due to the limited space in the camp and its growing population, the camp expanded both vertically and horizontally, extending beyond its original boundaries into the neighboring area, where additional plots of land were purchased and registered. This extension later came to be known as the “new camp.”

In September 2007, following more than four months of fighting between the Lebanese army and the Fatah al-Islam group that was holed up in the camp’s extension, the original “old camp” established by UNRWA was almost completely destroyed, and the new camp also suffered major damage. The area of the old camp before this conflict measured 195,000 square meters and contained 1,700 buildings ranging from two to four stories high, while the new camp covered an area of approximately 700,000 square meters. According to the Nahr el-Bared Reconstruction Commission, nearly 6,000 homes and commercial establishments in the old camp and the extension were completely destroyed or suffered severe damage.

On 23 June 2008, a conference on the reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared was held in Vienna, at the outcome of which the Lebanese government, UNRWA, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) committed to rebuilding the camp and paying compensation to those who had suffered losses in the surrounding neighborhoods and towns, in order to restore social harmony between communities in this part of Lebanon. The deadline for carrying this out was set at a maximum of three years from the date of the conference (May 2011) at a total cost of US$277 million. However, the reconstruction process was delayed because remains of an archaeological site were discovered underneath the rubble during the work to remove the debris in the camp in February 2009. Some experts believe the site may have been part of a Byzantine-era Roman town called Artozia.

This discovery was exploited by certain Lebanese political actors to call the reconstruction of the camp into question. Ultimately, in late April 2009, the Lebanese government decided to document and photograph the sites where the artifacts had been discovered, then carry out backfilling to conform with international standards of archaeological preservation. Then, in November 2009, the area was handed back to UNRWA. After the backfilling was finished, the first layer of concrete was laid in the entire camp in preparation for the pouring of the foundations and their reinforcements. But the challenges did not stop there; further obstacles arose. There was a noticeable decrease in funding due to shifting priorities following the onset of the crisis in Syria and other regional crises after 2011 that overshadowed and further complicated the crisis in the camp. As of 2023, approximately 82 percent of the old camp had been reconstructed. In the sectors of the new camp, 1,277 residential and non-residential units were restored.

While UNRWA supervised and managed the reconstruction of the old camp’s infrastructure (electricity, sewers, roads, water tanks, etc.), the Lebanese local municipal authorities took on the responsibility of restoring the new camp’s infrastructure, since UNRWA considers the new camp to be outside its jurisdiction. The Arab Development Project took responsibility for a part of its implementation.

Socioeconomic Conditions

Upon its establishment, Nahr el-Bared had a population of around 9,000; this number increased as a result of natural population growth. During the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the camp took in a number of displaced persons, including, for example, a number of residents of the Tal al-Za‘atar camp (outside of East Beirut), which was destroyed in 1976, who were accommodated in a sector of the camp that subsequently came to be called hayy al-muhajjarin (“the displaced quarter”). In the early 2000s, the original camp had a population of around 20,000, and the new extension had approximately the same number.

At the beginning of the fighting in May 2007, following an agreement between Palestinian factions and the Lebanese army for a temporary truce, nearly all the residents of Nahr el-Bared had to leave their homes. They sought refuge in the Beddawi camp, nearby areas in Tripoli, and other camps. According to UNRWA, more than 26,000 Palestinians and around 1,600 Lebanese living in the camp were displaced. However, this figure goes up to approximately 36,000 when taking into account those from surrounding villages who fled the fighting.

After the battles ended and the Lebanese army regained control of the camp in early September, a significant portion of the residents returned to live in temporary accommodations known as “containers” or “barracks” in local slang. These were basically large receptacle-like metal structures erected by UNRWA around Nahr el-Bared and Beddawi to shelter those displaced from the old camp. (These shelters were later removed during the reconstruction process.) Some families found refuge in garages normally considered unfit for habitation, while others with financial means rented homes near the new camp. During the reconstruction phase, residents began gradually returning to the rebuilt areas. However, after 2011, due to the events in Syria, a large number of Palestinian refugees from Syria and Syrians sought refuge in Nahr el-Bared and its surroundings, putting additional pressure on the already strained infrastructure and resources.

According to the general census of population and housing in Palestinian camps and gatherings in Lebanon, overseen by the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee in 2017, the population of the camp totaled 9,470, which was distributed as follows: 8,091 Palestinian refugees (registered in Lebanon), 1,015 Palestinian refugees from Syria, 208 Syrian nationals, and 147 Lebanese nationals. Meanwhile, the population of the new camp exceeded 17,000 according to the same census.

Before the fighting in 2007, Nahr el-Bared was a vital economic lifeline that served as a commercial center for the people of the towns and villages of the Akkar region in northernmost Lebanon. It was distinguished from the country’s other Palestinian refugee camps by the economic prosperity it enjoyed, which was primarily linked to its strategic geographical location at the intersection of the urban region of Tripoli, the agricultural region of Akkar, and the coastal highway between Tripoli and the Lebanese-Syrian border. Social relations between Nahr el-Bared’s residents and their Lebanese neighbors were also strong due to the bustling economic activity within the camp, which drew the residents of neighboring villages to visit the camp regularly for shopping. However, these relations were negatively impacted by the events of 2007 and the Lebanese army checkpoints that were set up all around the camp.

Labor

Commercial activity in Nahr el-Bared was a primary source of employment, as was agricultural work in the neighboring Lebanese villages. However, the events of 2007 significantly impacted the economic situation and labor conditions within the camp. Most families lost their savings, possessions, and sources of livelihood. Since then, they have relied on modest in-kind assistance and cash handouts provided by UNRWA and other social service organizations.

As the reconstruction process began inside the camp, a significant number of its youth found work in construction. However, these projects could not absorb the entire unemployed workforce. This situation exacerbated the emigration of youth abroad, particularly through clandestine migration. In September 2022, a boat carrying migrants sank off the Syrian coast, and some camp residents were among the casualties.

Education

Before 2007, UNRWA operated a compound in the camp that included six schools, a health center, and relief distribution offices. However, the compound was completely destroyed during the fighting, forcing UNRWA to construct the prefabricated barracks made of sheet metal in neighboring areas of the camp and in Beddawi camp to act as temporary schools. Students complained of overcramped space, noise, extreme heat in the summer, and severe cold in the winter. Between 2011 and 2013, UNRWA managed to rebuild five schools as well as the north campus of the Siblin Vocational Training Center. In 2023, the agency opened its compound inside the new camp with the Mejiddo and Mazaar schools (both co-educational). As of 2023, the camp also had eighteen kindergartens, some of which were affiliated with Palestinian NGOs, while others were operating independently, located both inside the camp and on its outskirts.

Evolution of Administration and the Fight for Control over the Camp

During the 1950s and 1960s, Nahr el-Bared was under the direct control of the Lebanese authorities. In the late 1960s, this control was exercised through the Deuxième Bureau—the intelligence apparatus of the Lebanese army—that worked in coordination with some of the Palestinian clans in the camp. This period was characterized by severe repression of the Palestinians in the camps of Lebanon; they were not allowed to engage in any kind of political activity or even to make any alterations or repair their homes. After the signing of the Cairo Agreement between the Lebanese state and the PLO in November 1969, the camp came under the joint control of the Palestinian factions that were part of the PLO. As in other Palestinian camps in Lebanon, a popular committee was created in Nahr el-Bared to run the camp, and internal security was entrusted to the officers of an apparatus called “the armed struggle.”

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent withdrawal of the PLO from southern Lebanon and Beirut in the summer of 1982 was followed by a split within the Fatah movement that led to the formation of Fatah-Intifada in the spring of 1983 and the return of Yasir Arafat to Lebanon in mid-September of that year, when he headed to the north. Clashes then erupted in Tripoli and around Beddawi and Nahr el-Bared between Fatah-Intifada, supported by Syrian forces, and the pro-Arafat Fatah forces. The confrontations resulted in the withdrawal of the pro-Arafat forces from Nahr el-Bared on 6 November of that year, and Fatah-Intifada took control of the camp. Thus, a new popular committee was formed in the camp, composed of Palestinian factions loyal to the Syrian regime. This committee continued to manage affairs in the camp until the withdrawal of the Syrian army and intelligence apparatus from Lebanon in 2005.

However, after the PLO factions began to regroup in the camp, radical Islamist militants came in in the fall of 2006 and installed themselves within ​​the new camp. At the same time, a separate group of Salafists entered the old camp claiming they were part of Fatah-Intifada and quickly took control of the latter’s military post. Since the end of the fighting that erupted between those forces and the Lebanese army that went on from May until September 2007, the Lebanese army has been permanently stationed at all entrance points to the camp, and for several years, visitors to Nahr el-Bared and even the residents themselves needed a permit to enter the camp. This made Nahr el-Bared the only Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon to come under the direct control of the Lebanese state, as the official state security services have taken direct charge of security, and there even came to be a police station of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces inside the camp.

Social and Cultural Activity

Nahr el-Bared was distinguished over the years for the vitality of its cultural scene; it had public libraries, art exhibitions, and large spaces for cultural performances. However, the fighting in 2007 destroyed these spaces, and the needs and the priorities of the camp’s residents have since changed. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to recreate spaces for artistic and cultural expression, thanks to the presence of several social, humanitarian, youth, and women's organizations. Moreover, several football fields have also been built, as well as a large stadium known as the Nahr el-Bared Grand Stadium, which was made possible through donations from American Near East Refugee Aid and the State of Qatar.