Public Rooftop at the Women’s Centre in Shu’afat Refugee Camp

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Palestinian refugee camps house the world’s largest and oldest refugee population. Following the 1948 Nakba, about a million Palestinians were expelled from what became Israel. In the 1967 Naqsa (the Six-Day War), Jerusalem, along with the Syrian Golan Heights and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, came under Israeli occupation. These annexations were never recognized by the UN and created a million more refugees and internally displaced Palestinians. One of these camps, more than 50 years old, is Shu’afat, whose residents come mainly from the old cities of Jerusalem and Hebron. Following the Oslo Accords, all camps in the West Bank and Gaza came under the control of the PA except for this one, which stayed in a limbo, sort of ruled by UNRWA.