Palestine Think Tank

Lebanon: the "reconstruction" of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, destroyed a year and a half ago by the Lebanese army
 
The stone base that initiates the process of rebuilding the camp of Nahr al-Bared was laid on Monday, March 9 at a ceremony organized by the Lebanese Government and the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, [...]

More than a year after their homes were destroyed during the battle between the Lebanese army and the militant Islamist group Fatah al-Islam, the majority of the refugees from Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon find themselves in a difficult situation. Not able to return to their homes, stuck in pre-fabricated housing units and often unemployed, [...]

One year has passed since the first Palestinians were allowed to return to the outskirts of the destroyed Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, to the so-called "new camp". Meanwhile, up to 15.000 people have resettled there, many of them waiting to access their destroyed homes in the "old camp", the core of what used to be [...]

Early in the morning, between 5 and 6am, a wave of footsteps and whispering voices can be heard in the narrow alleys of Bourj ash-Shamali Refugee Camp [Sabbah: Palestinian Refugee Camp] in South Lebanon. It is in the darkness of the early morning hours that hundreds of Palestinian day laborers leave their homes, gather in [...]

The 60 years of Israeli Occupation of Palestine and other areas of the Arab Homeland puts constant pressure in a direct way upon the daily lives of the Palestinian people. Walls and fences, checkpoints and block roads, closure and siege are just some of the elements that exert devastating effect on the Palestinian economy. The [...]

I remember a few years ago walking through the wonderful narrow streets of the occupied Old city of Jerusalem, seeing a small shop managed by an old Palestinian man who was selling souvenirs to the tourists. I entered the shop, not because I wanted to buy something, I am not a tourist in my own [...]

(illustration by Mazen Kerbaj – translation below*)
What is going on today in Lebanon is just an extension of the situation in the entire region. The US and its western allies are trying to show everyone that religion is the main factor of this dispute and they are trying to cover the political motivations and especially [...]