Refugees from Gaza Face Uncertain Future in the West Bank

Essam Saed's mobile rings constantly as he sits quietly on his patio in Ramallah. Between puffs on his water pipe and sips of Palestinian beer, Saed fields phone calls in both Arabic and Hebrew. He sighs, exhales, and closes his phone.

"Forty more refugees are coming to Ramallah from Gaza. They have been shot in the fighting with Hamas, and are waiting in hospitals for permits from the Israelis," he says, taking another long drag.

It is not the first such phone call Saed has received.

Saed "who fled the strip earlier this year when his NGO offices were ransacked by Hamas" has personally taken up the task of tracking the Palestinians who escaped to the West Bank after a week of bloody street battles erupted in June.

Now, according to a spokesperson at Palestinian Authority (PA) headquarters in Ramallah, nearly 400 refugees from Gaza are warily taking up residence across the West Bank, the Palestinian territory that flanks the border with Jordan.

Unsure of how the US-sponsored Annapolis conference set for later this month will help determine their fate, the refugees from Gaza "still living under Israeli occupation" watch and wait.

Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fell to Hamas Islamists after clashes between the two factions escalated in June of this year. A unity government was announced in March, but failed to end the violence that had plagued the Gaza Strip since Hamas won the parliamentary elections in 2006.

Intensified fighting transformed the Gaza Strip into a civil battleground, leaving Hamas in control of the narrow coastal territory, Fatah in power in the West Bank, and the flight of up to 2,000 refugees.

Attempting to rebuild their lives in the West Bank, the region's newest wave of refugees faces economic challenges, an ill-defined legal status, and the constant reminder they are not yet citizens of a sovereign state.

"Life is very hard here, and I don't know what will happen tomorrow or the next day"to me or to my family. But we are Palestinian and cannot travel; where else can we go?" Saed asks.

The forthcoming Annapolis conference hosted by the U.S. is not expected to address key issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nor set a timetable for the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

While Palestinian officials have pushed for a detailed blueprint of a two-state solution, Israeli negotiators insist Annapolis should serve simply as a launch-pad for future peace talks.

As long as the status of the Palestinian Territories remains in political limbo, and the Hamas-Fatah split fails to reconcile the Palestinian Authority, Gazan refugees in the West Bank are at the mercy of Israeli government policy.

"The Israeli government told me my wife must return to Gaza; that she doesn't have permission stay in Ramallah. We are trying to build a life here, on Palestinian land, and you tell me she cannot stay?" Saed told IPS.

Permits to travel in and out of the Gaza Strip are also issued to Palestinians by the Israeli government, and families of the recent exiles have largely been barred from visiting their relatives in the West Bank.

"I cannot return to Gaza because I am afraid for my life," Ibrahim Sharaf, a 19-year-old student who fled Gaza after he was informed Hamas suspected him of being a part of the Fatah Youth, told IPS.

"But my family is not allowed to travel to the West Bank to see me. I don't know when I'll be able to see them again. No one in the Israeli government can tell me."

Those who fled the Gaza Strip for the West Bank"both territories with a precarious and imprecise legal status" in the recent wave of violence, are not considered international refugees nor internally displaced persons.

"There is a protection gap for Palestinian refugees as a whole under international law," says Ibrahim Sourani, Media Project Director at the Gaza-based Palestinian Commission for Refugee Right Protection.

"And these recent refugees from Gaza are not being treated as refugees in the system, even if they have crossed an international border, such as with Egypt."

The negotiators at Annapolis are unlikely to raise the subject of refugees " one of the most explosive issues in the Middle East conflict.

But the Gaza refugees are hoping the conference will hash out some sort of broad agreement that will allow them to move freely between the territories.

The refugees are also struggling to adjust to the new economic realities of the West Bank, which has always been more prosperous " and more expensive " than the beleaguered enclave from which they fled.

"Life is very expensive here," says Zakariya Al Raay. "I have 12 family members in Gaza who need support, but I cannot give it to them from the West Bank. I have to use whatever I have to survive myself."

Al Raay's plight is made harder by the fact that he is now permanently disabled. A street battle he encountered between Hamas and Fatah forces left gunshot wounds and shrapnel in his right leg, forcing Israeli doctors to amputate.

As a part of the Fatah-led PA security forces, Ray still draws a $200 USD stipend from the Palestinian Authority, but aid workers and student refugees are left to fend for themselves.

Many of the refugees would also like to know when they can return to Gaza, where they left homes, jobs, and entire lives behind. But with Hamas both uninvited and outwardly opposed to the Annapolis peace talks, Palestinian factions remain bitterly divided.

"If I could go back to Gaza, I would do it in a second. Believe me, Gaza is my home; it is Palestine for me. But not in this situation," Saed says.

"We will wait for peace; between Palestinians, and with the Israelis."