‘An identity that we carry with us’: What Israel couldn’t destroy in Jenin refugee camp
The al-Kafif school housing some 20 Palestinian families from Jenin refugee camp
Qassam Muaddi reports in Mondoweiss on 17 March 2025:
From the outside, the al-Kafif Association’s school in the city of Jenin looks like any ordinary school on a normal day. The long building, with its rows of windows and a Palestinian flag on its front wall overlooking the courtyard, gives the impression of a regular day of class, especially with a group of children playing in the corner of a sandy playground, until we approach them.
Barefoot and wearing pajamas instead of uniforms, the children invite us to explore their game.
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The refugee camp recreates itself
At the directorate office of the Kafif school, Um Yahya, the teacher in charge of the night shift at the school, tries to solve a dispute between two of the displaced residents and a worker over the distribution of a food donation that had just arrived.
“I went from solving disputes between young students to solving disputes between grown-ups,” she says with a smirk. “At the start, one man came to the school and took shelter for two days. Then he left and came back with his family, and after that, displaced families kept arriving every day for a week, until the school was full.”
She continues: “We are a civil society association and receive no funding from the government, as we depend on donations. But now, like with many other civil society establishments in the city, we have turned our efforts to help the displaced.”
“The displaced are housed in the student dorms. People from the city and beyond bring donations of food, blankets, and other items,” Um Yahya explains. “Most of the donations come to us and we distribute them, but some people donate directly to families.”
“The displaced continue to go to their jobs and have their income, but they have lost most of their belongings and were forced to leave everything behind. They lost their homes,” she points out.