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Neirab camp or Al-Nayrab camp is a Palestinian refugee camp that was set up near the village of Al-Neirab, 13 km from Aleppo, Syria. It was created in 1948–1950 following the Nakba.

It is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, with a reported number of 23,469 people as of 2024. It is also considered one of the poorest.

History

The camp was created in 1948 to accommodate for Palestinian refugees that fled during the Nakba. Originally, the camp consisted of barracks used by allied troops during World War II, but it quickly grew outside of those, due to the number of refugees.

There were plans by the UNRWA to remove the camp in the early 1960s, but those plans didn't come to fruition. In 1988, it was already the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. In 2010s, the barracks were still seen by some refugees as a symbol of their origins and their struggles, even though most, if not all, of the barracks were destroyed since. The camp was described, around this period, as having "the most abysmal living conditions of all the Palestine refugees camps in Syria", by the UNRWA. The Syrian Air Force engaged in raids inside the camp to target Hamas militants there, in the early 2010s.

A paramilitary group, called the 'Liwa al-Quds', was formed with people from the camp during the Syrian civil war and was supportive of Bashar al-Assad. In 2016, the camp was cut from water supply during 80 days. The camp has suffered huge emigration, for example, it is considered that most of the Palestinian refugees managing to cross into Turkey from Syria are coming from two camps, Neirab and the nearby Ein Al-Tal.

Population

The population inside and on the surroundings of the camp grew quickly, and was at 13,032 people inside and 11,676 outside in 1988. As of 2019, it had a reported population of around 19,000 people, this number grew to a reported number of 23,469 people as of 2024. The population is mostly Sunni Palestinian. They hail mostly from the upper Galilee areas of the cities of Safdouka, Haifa and Tiberias, and from the villages of al-Tira, Lubya, Tarshiha, Hattin, Kweikat, al-Nahr, Safsaf, al-Tajr, Jish, Ain Ghazal, and others. It is considered to be one of the poorer Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, alongside Ein Al-Tal, which is an offroot of Neirab.

Notable people

Neirab camp is the birthplace of the following people:

• Rima Hassan (born 1992), Palestinian–French jurist and member of the European Parliament

References

1. ^ Zochrot. "ذاكرات – مخيم النيرب". ذاكرات – مخيم النيرب. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
2. "NEIRAB CAMP". www.unrwa.org. Archived from the original on 26 September 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
3. ^ Assaly, Tania (7 May 2014). "Partition: Post-Syrian Society After the Fall of Assad". Public and International Affairs – Research Papers. hdl:10393/31052. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
4. ^ Gabiam, Nell (2011). "Spatializing Identity: The Changing Landscape of Palestinian Refugee Camps". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2130401. ISSN 1556-5068. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
5. "Mu'askar and Shu'fat: Retracing the Histories of Two Palestinian Refugee Camps in Jerusalem". Institute for Palestine Studies. p. 51. Archived from the original on 29 January 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
6. ^ Brand, Laurie (1988). "Palestinians in Syria: The Politics of Integration". Middle East Journal. 42 (4): 625. ISSN 0026-3141. JSTOR 4327836. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
7. Karmon, Ely (2013). "Hamas in Dire Straits". Perspectives on Terrorism. 7 (5): 121. ISSN 2334-3745. JSTOR 26297010.
8. ^ Mousa, Ashraf (2019). "Palestinians in the Syrian Uprising: the situation on the ground". Syria Studies. 11 (2): 44–62. ISSN 2056-3175. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
9. "After 80 days of cut-out, running water arrives again to Al-Nayrab Camp houses". actionpal.org.uk. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
10. "No way out : the second nakba of Palestinian refugees from Syria escaping to Turkey". search.emarefa.net. p. 35. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
11. Cohen, Sam A. (27 August 2014). Future of the Middle East – United Pan-Arab States. Author House. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-4969-3493-2. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
12. Rempel, T. "UNRWA and the Palestine refugees: a genealogy of "participatory" development". academic.oup.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
13. Gendron, Guillaume. "Rima Hassan, la Palestine à cœur et à cris". Libération (in French). Archived from the original on 2 May 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
14. "" Être réfugiée palestinienne, c'est vivre en quête de son identité "". Association France Palestine Solidarité (in French). Archived from the original on 22 April 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
15. "Rima Hassan, la Palestine chevillée au cœur". Le Monde.fr (in French). 14 January 2024. Archived from the original on 1 May 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.

v t e Palestine refugee camps locations and populations as of 2015
Gaza Strip 518,000 UNRWA refugees  West Bank 188,150 UNRWA refugees  Syria 319,958 UNRWA refugees  Lebanon 188,850 UNRWA refugees  Jordan 355,500 UNRWA refugees Al-Shati (Beach camp) 87,000 Bureij 34,000 Deir al-Balah 21,000 Jabalia 110,000 Khan Yunis 72,000 Maghazi 24,000 Nuseirat 66,000 Rafah 104,000 Canada closed Aqabat Jaber 6,400 Ein as-Sultan 1,900 Far'a 7,600 Fawwar 8,000 Jalazone 11,000 Qalandia 11,000 Am'ari 10,500 Deir 'Ammar 2,400 Dheisheh 13,000 Aida 4,700 Al-Arroub 10,400 Askar 15,900 Balata 23,600 'Azza (Beit Jibrin) 1,000 Ein Beit al-Ma' (Camp No. 1) 6,750 Tulkarm 18,000 Nur Shams 9,000 Jenin 16,000 Shu'fat 11,000 Silwad Birzeit Sabinah 22,600 Khan al-Shih 20,000 Nayrab 20,500 Homs 22,000 Jaramana 18,658 Daraa 10,000 Hama 8,000 Khan Danoun 10,000 Qabr Essit 23,700 Unofficial camps Ein Al-Tal 6,000 Latakia 10,000 Yarmouk 148,500 Bourj el-Barajneh 17,945 Ain al-Hilweh 54,116 El Buss 11,254 Nahr al-Bared 5,857 Shatila 9,842 Wavel 8,806 Mar Elias 662 Mieh Mieh 5,250 Beddawi 16,500 Burj el-Shamali 22,789 Dbayeh 4,351 Rashidieh 31,478 Former camps Tel al-Zaatar  ? Nabatieh  ? Zarqa 20,000 Jabal el-Hussein 29,000 Amman New (Wihdat) 51,500 Souf 20,000 Baqa'a 104,000 Husn (Martyr Azmi el-Mufti camp) 22,000 Irbid 25,000 Jerash 24,000 Marka 53,000 Talbieh 8,000 Al-Hassan  ? Madaba  ? Sokhna  ?
References "Camp Profiles". unrwa.org. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Retrieved 2 July 2015.

36°10′24″N 37°13′14″E / 36.1733093°N 37.2204351°E / 36.1733093; 37.2204351

• Neighborhoods of Aleppo
• Palestinian refugee camps in Syria