"Our First Country Is Palestine," Say Refugees in Syria's Yarmouk Camp "It's not possible to stay for hundreds of year

[riversedge]

“Our First Country Is Palestine,” Say Refugees in Syria’s Yarmouk Camp 
“It’s not possible to stay for hundreds of years as refugees; we need a just solution,” says a Palestinian from Yarmouk.

https://truthout.org/articles/our-first-country-is-palestine-say-refugees-in-syrias-yarmouk-camp/?utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons


By Anagha Subhash Nair July 18, 2025

Activists in Yarmouk camp, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, hold a solidarity vigil for Gaza on March 28, 2025.
Rami Alsayed / NurPhoto via Getty Images



An arch crowns the entrance of a long, dusty, multi-laned street in the outskirts of Syria’s capital, Damascus. The text on the arch has been freshly painted — “Yarmouk camp” — with the Palestinian and Syrian Independence flags ensconced between the two words.

The street is dotted with small businesses getting back on their feet after over a decade of war in Syria. Closed shutters gathering dust, piles of garbage and destruction all around are eerie reminders of what the camp has witnessed. The Syrian war ran from 2011 to late 2024, when rebel forces headed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled President Bashar al-Assad in a blitz overthrow. Yarmouk did not escape the clutches of the conflict.


Before 2011, Yarmouk housed about 160,000 Palestinian refugees, and was a key trade center and business hub. As one resident says, the camp was a “city of its own.” Within the complexities of the Syrian war, Yarmouk presented an additional layer of intricacy. Despite initial attempts by a large part of the camp’s population to maintain a sense of neutrality in the Syrian civil war, Yarmouk was dragged into the turmoil. In 2011, the camp was a safe haven for people fleeing the Assad regime but by the next year, surrounding areas had come under rebel control. In December 2012, the Assad regime began employing aerial warfare in the camp; a Russian-model MiG jet, bombed a mosque, hospital, and school sheltering refugees, marking the start of a destructive campaign by Assad, backed by Russia. In 2013, intensification of fighting in Yarmouk was accompanied by a massive siege of the camp imposed by the Assad government. Soon after, opposition factions took over the camp and gradually, the situation within it worsened. .................................

[annalog]

1. That seems

right. A two-state solution would give them their country back