2023-10-16 14:08:00
“All the children are depressed”: life in the West Bank of Jordan is more difficult every day
Noor Barakat, right, with her sister Shuroq Barakat outside a shop in Dheisheh. (Photo: Ivana Kottasova)
Every time Noor Barakat goes to buy food, the prices are higher. On Tuesday of last week there was no bread. Now it is fuel and water that are becoming a problem. The fruits and vegetables that are normally brought from the north have not arrived.
The 22-year-old English teacher lives in the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, an area that has been largely isolated from the rest of the West Bank. Its residents are not allowed to leave and anyone visiting has to cross the checkpoint at its entrance on foot, leaving vehicles on the other side of the barricade.
“People have real difficulties going to work. Most people here work in Israel, so they can’t go to their jobs,” he told CNN.
The restrictions on movement have been imposed by the Israeli military after Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, killing 1,400 people and kidnapping dozens of others.
Checkpoints have been closed and new roadblocks installed at several entry and exit points into the occupied West Bank.
Dheisheh is one of the areas of the West Bank that are under Palestinian control, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regularly carry out raids and raids.
“The Israeli military came in (yesterday) and the children couldn’t go to school, they had to wait for them to leave and start later,” Barakat told CNN.
The concern here is that Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack will have devastating consequences for the civilian population of the West Bank of Jordan.
“We are scared and we spend all our time watching the news and waiting to see what happens. We are praying,” Barkat said.
The camp was first established in 1949, when 3,000 Palestinians settled there after being expelled or fleeing villages west of Jerusalem. Since then, the camp’s population has grown to more than 18,500 people who continue to live on a built-up area of one-third of a square kilometer, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
“The kids are depressed. They don’t get enough sleep, the news is on all the time. I tell them [a los niños] that we have to be patient and pray, but that life has to continue. I tell them we can’t stop everything and just think about this,” she said.
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