The Pressure Cooker of Refugee Camps: The Engine that Fuels Palestinian Terrorism

The issue of Palestinian refugees continues to be one of the main driving forces of the national conflict, perpetuating lives of misery for some 80 years as a bargaining chip to achieve the right of return. While the Oslo Accords postponed resolving the issue, on the ground it is perceived by many Palestinians as even more sacred than the mosques of the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa. 

“It is easier to resolve the issue of Jerusalem,” explains Dr. Harel Horev from Tel Aviv University, who researches Palestinian society. According to him, the demand to absorb refugees within the State of Israel, and not in the areas of the Palestinian Authority, is unsolvable and its aim is the destruction of the state. In camps such as Shuafat in northern Jerusalem, the residents refuse to compromise on the right of return to their cities of origin like Ashkelon and Ashdod, and declare that they will not give up their land even for “all the money in the world.”

This consciousness turns the refugee camps into a unique political and security incubator, where the identity of being a refugee outweighs any organizational affiliation. In camps like Jenin and Tulkarm, members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and the Popular Front operate side by side as “brothers.”

In recent years, these camps have become forward outposts of the “axis of resistance” led and financed by Iran, which funnels money to 18-year-old youths and fosters new terror organizations like the “Lion’s Den” in Nablus, alongside about 50 additional armed battalions. Arik Barbing, former head of the Jerusalem district in the Shin Bet, describes the complex operational challenge in the camps. According to him, navigation and locating houses are especially difficult, and establishing a network of sources and agents faces significant obstacles due to the control of local thugs.

Beyond the security threat, the refugee camps also generate internal social tension. In the past, in Nablus of the 1970s, marriages with residents of the Balata refugee camp or their integration into the city council were considered taboo, which leads to a certain comparison to the experience of the transit camps (ma'abarot) in Israel. The residents feel excluded from public roles by "corrupt people" who returned and took over the government, even though it was the refugees who "paid in blood." 

A clear example of structural change can be seen in the Gaza Strip, where the rise of Hamas turned the social pyramid upside down and transformed small refugee camp families into the new elite, almost all seven founders of the organization emerged from the refugee camps.

Facing a simmering internal reality and international sponsorship that increases the number of refugees as the years go by, the refugee camps remain a ticking time bomb threatening to trigger the next earthquake.