Map of Ain El Helwe camp with Dr Ali pointing at location of MAP offices at the fringes of the camp.

Nahr el Bared is not a place like any other. Ain El Helwe is not a place like any other. They’re both Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, one in the North and one in the South. They rank highest in population count in the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and they are physically and psychologically gated, allowing people with certain IDs to get in or out, with strict or not so strict checkpoints. But thinking you know it all by stepping into either of them is far from it. I’d gone at least 6 times into Ain El Helwe a year earlier, working closely with Amal Shihabi, one of two speakers of TEDxRamallah in Lebanon (you can watch her talk in Arabic here). I am also vaguely familiar with Nahr El Bared from a visit i’d made with the UNRWA a few years after the 2007 conflict. Continue Reading…