Palestinians in Syria caught in the middle

Nadia is making the rounds of distribution centres in search of food for herself, her unemployed street-sweeper husband and her displaced parents, who are living with 15 others in a room in a school in the northern district of Ruk en-Din.

To reach central Damascus, the striking young woman in long blue-grey coat and matching headscarf braved the rebel Free Syrian Army and regular army checkpoints at the entrance to Yarmouk township south of Damascus.

She is Syrian from a village near the international airport. Her husband is a Palestinian living in built-up urban Yarmouk, one sector a UN camp for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes at Israel’s establishment 65 years ago this week.

“There is no bread in Yarmouk, no vegetables, so I came out,” Nadia says. “Sometimes the Syrian army doesn’t let us leave.

“There are snipers, Free Army soldiers beat and rob us. When we demonstrate they shoot. They shoot at women. They insult girls and shot a girl because she shouted at them.

“We Palestinians are neutral. If the Free Army wants to attack the soldiers, let them go out of the camp.”

She and her 18-month-old son spent the night with her parents in the school. “They have nothing, only their clothes. I had to borrow a mirror to arrange my hijab [headscarf].”

The UN agency aiding Palestinians gives 3,000 Syrian pounds ($2.15) to every registered refugee family, “but this is not enough. A kilo of tomatoes is 100,” she says.

Once a thriving district with a population approaching one million, Yarmouk now has 30,000-80,000 people who have nowhere else to go.

Radical faction
Over lunch at his family's temporary home, Khalil, a middle- class Palestinian whom I met 18 months ago, says: "Yarmouk fell on December 16th [last year] after Palestinian fighters let in the Free Army and Jabhat al-Nusra," the most prominent radical fundamentalist faction.

While taking me on a tour of the area last August, he pointed out and expressed approval of the torching of the headquarters of the Palestinian Popular Front-General Command, headed by Ahmad Jibril, a Syrian surrogate. But Khalil's attitude has changed. "He defended us for eight months and was betrayed by his own men. When the camp fell, the government did not support him."

"December 16th was our second naqba ," catastrophe, the term used for the Palestinian defeat by Israel in 1948. "Yarmouk was the largest Palestinian community outside Palestine." More than 120,000 lived there; now they are dispersed.

“When the camp fell, Nora [Khalil’s sister] and I were at work and could not get home. Government planes bombed the mosque. Fifty were killed. People freaked out.” Khalil’s English is fluent and idiomatic.

His mother, father and younger sister were trapped in Yarmouk overnight but on the 17th, they walked out with tens of thousands of others. “In front and in back all we could see was heads,” his mother says.

It took them three hours to reach Bab Sharqi, the eastern gate of the Old City. They stayed in a hotel for two months, until relatives, who are in Cairo, sublet their elegant flat in central Damascus.

“We have to find something else in before they return in two months,” Khalil says. His family has three salaries: his, Nora’s and another sister’s. She works in Dubai. His father’s office is off limits in Yarmouk. Khalil’s third sister, a student, cannot follow her economics course at Latakia University which is far from Damascus.

“The Free Army divided up Yarmouk into sections and robbed systematically. Most of the fighters come from Hajar al-Aswad [a neighbouring suburb]. They belong to the Eagles of the Golan. They are really bad guys.”

So far, their flat has been spared both bombs and pillage but neighbouring buildings have been ravaged. His mother and sisters have returned three times to get clothing and other possessions. Khalil went once.

“It is too dangerous for men to go. We are arrested at the checkpoints by the Free Army or the regular army.”

External forces
A sharp critic of the government when first we met, Khalil dismisses Free Army claims that it is defending the people.

“They are backed by external forces that care nothing for the Syrian people. They are much worse than the regime.”

As I prepared to depart, he adds: “I am half Palestinian and half Syrian. I was born of a Palestinian mother but raised by Syria. I’m optimistic. I think Syria will survive and grow strong.”