Palestinian refugees return to Yarmouk amid questions about their place in the new Syria

DAMASCUS — The Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora before the war in Syria reduced it to row after row of blasted out buildings where there were once falafel stands, pharmacies and mosques.

Taken over by a series of militant groups then bombarded by government planes, the camp has been all but abandoned since 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves. Those who wanted to return to rebuild their homes were stymied by Kafkaesque bureaucratic and security requirements.

But bit by bit, the camp's former occupants have trickled back. After the Dec. 8 fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in a lightening offensive by opposition forces, many more hope they will be able do so.

At the same time, Syria's Palestinian refugees — a population of about 450,000 — are unsure of their place in the new order.

''The new Syrian leadership, how will it deal with the Palestinian issue?'' said Palestinian ambassador to Syria Samir al-Rifai. ''We have no information because we have had no contact with each other so far.''

Days after Assad's government collapsed, women walked in groups through the streets of Yarmouk while children played in the rubble. Motorcycles, bicycles and the occasional car passed between bombed-out buildings. In one of the less heavily damaged areas, a fruit and vegetable market was doing brisk business.

Some people were coming back for the first time in years to check on their homes. Others had been back before but only now were thinking about rebuilding and returning for good.

Ahmad al-Hussein left the camp in 2011, soon after the beginning of the anti-government uprising-turned-civil-war. A few months ago, driven by rising rents elsewhere, he came back to live with relatives in a part of the camp that was relatively untouched.

He is now hoping to rebuild his home in a building that was reduced to a hollowed-out shell and marked for demolition.

Under Assad's rule, getting permission from security agencies to enter the camp ''wasn't easy,'' al-Hussein said. ''You would have to sit at a table and answer who's your mother, who's your father, and who in your family was arrested and who was with the rebels. … Twenty-thousand questions to get the approval,''

He said people who had been reluctant now want to return, among them his son, who fled to Germany.

Taghrid Halawi came with two other women on Thursday to check on their houses. They spoke wistfully of the days when the streets of the camp used to buzz with life until 3 or 4 a.m.

''You really feel that your Palestine is here, even though you are far from Palestine,'' Halawi said. ''Even with all this destruction, I feel like it's like heaven. I hope that everyone returns, all the ones who left the country or are living in other areas.''

Yarmouk was built in 1957 as a Palestinian refugee camp but grew into a vibrant suburb where many working-class Syrians settled. Before the war, some 1.2 million people lived in Yarmouk, including 160,000 Palestinians, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Today, it houses some 8,160 Palestinian refugees who remained or have returned.

Palestinian refugees in Syria are not given citizenship, ostensibly to preserve their right to go back to the homes they fled or were forced from during the 1948 creation of the state of Israel and where they are currently banned from returning.

But in contrast to neighboring Lebanon, where Palestinians are banned from owning property or working in many professions, in Syria, Palestinians historically had all the rights of citizens except the right to vote and run for office — a negligible matter given that the outcome of Syrian elections was largely predetermined.

At the same time, Palestinian factions have had a complicated relationship with Syrian authorities. Former Syrian President Hafez Assad and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat were bitter adversaries. Many Palestinians were imprisoned for belonging to Arafat's Fatah movement.

Mahmoud Dakhnous, a retired teacher who returned to Yarmouk to check on his demolished house, said he used to be frequently called in for questioning by the Syrian intelligence services.

''Despite their claims that they are with the (Palestinian) resistance, in the media they were, but on the ground the reality was something else," he said of the Assad dynasty.

In recent years, the Syrian government began to roll back the right of Palestinians to own and inherit property.

As for the country's new rulers, ''we need more time to judge'' their stance toward Syria's Palestinians, Dahknous said.

''But the signs so far in this week, the positions and proposals that are being put forward by the new government are good for the people and the citizens,'' he said.

Yarmouk's Palestinian factions tried to remain neutral when Syria's civil war broke out, but by late 2012, the camp was pulled into the conflict and different factions took opposing sides.

Since the fall of Assad, the factions have been angling to solidify their relationship with the new government. A group of Palestinian factions said in a statement Wednesday that they had formed a body, headed by the Palestinian ambassador, to manage relations with Syria's new authorities.

The new leadership — headed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamic militant group — has not officially commented on the status of Palestinian refugees or regarding its stance toward Israel, which the previous Syrian government never recognized.

The Syrian interim government on Friday sent a complaint to the U.N. Security Council denouncing the incursion by Israeli forces into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights and their bombardment of multiple areas in Syria. But HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has said the new administration does not seek a conflict with Israel.

Al-Rifai said the new government's security forces had entered the offices of three Palestinian factions and removed the weapons that were there, but that it was unclear whether there had been an official decision to disarm Palestinian groups.

''We are fully aware that the new leadership has issues that are more important'' than the issue of Palestinian refugees, he said, including ''the issue of stability first.''

For now, he said, Palestinians are hoping for the best. "We expect the relationship between us to be a better relationship.''

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Associated Press reporter Albert Aji contributed.