Nuseirat Camp () is a

Palestinian refugee camp Palestinian refugee camps were first established to accommodate Palestinians who were displaced by the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight during the 1948 Palestine war. Camps were established by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UN ...

located in the middle of the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

, five kilometers north-east of

Deir al-Balah Deir al-Balah or Deir al Balah () is a city in the center of the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and the administrative capital of the Deir al-Balah Governorate. It is located over south of Gaza City. The city had a population of 75,132 in 2017. The ci ...

. The

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

is in the

Deir al-Balah Governorate The Deir al-Balah Governorate ( '), also referred to as Central Gaza Governorate () is one of 16 Governorates of Palestine in the central Gaza Strip which is administered by Hamas aside from its border with Israel, airspace, and maritime territ ...

, Gaza Strip. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...

, the refugee camp had a population of 31,747 and the surrounding Nuseirat municipality had a population of 54,851 in 2017. The camp was established after the

1948 Palestinian expulsion In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled. Expulsions and attacks against Palestinians were carried out by the ...

during the

1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

History

Ancient history

The Nuseirat camp was named after the local Nuseirat tribe, part of the larger Hanajira confederation, that historically dominated the area between Deir al-Balah and Gaza. Excavations in the area have revealed remains of a large coenobium, including a church with a crypt, a bathhouse and a hospice, reminiscent of the

monastery of Martyrius Monastery of Martyrius, whose ruins, known as Khirbet el-Murassas in Arabic, have been excavated in the centre of the West Bank settlement and city of Ma'ale Adumim, was one of the most important centres of monastic life in the Judean Desert during ...

Ma'ale Adummim Ma'ale Adumim (; ) is an urban Israeli settlement organized as a city council in the West Bank, seven kilometers () east of Jerusalem. Ma'ale Adumim achieved city status in 1991. In 2015, its population was . It is located along Highway 1, whi ...

. The side has been tentatively identified as that of the

monastery of Seridus The monastery of Seridus was a monastic community that flourished during the 6th and early 7th century in Palestine. Founded by Seridus of Gaza after whom the monastery was later named, it housed in the first half of the sixth century the well-k ...

Origin of the refugee camp

The camp was established after the

during the

. Most refugees of this camp came from the southern areas of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

such as

Beersheba Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most p ...

and the coastal plain. Prior to the camp's establishment by

UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, pronounced ) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fl ...

, the roughly 16,000 original refugees settled in the grounds of a former British military prison at the site.

2000s

In May 2018 a mosque, the Grand Nuseirat Mosque, was opened by the

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

i envoy to Gaza, Mohammed Al Emadi.

Gaza war

The Nuseirat refugee camp has been bombed repeatedly since the start of the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

. On 18 October 2023 the Grand Nuseirat Mosque was bombed and destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, subsequently the attacks continued causing more than a hundred victims. On 8 June 2024, the IDF and

Yamam Yamam (), also known as National Counter-Terrorism Unit, is Israel's national counter-terrorism unit, one of four special units of the Israel Border Police. The Yamam is capable of both hostage-rescue operations and offensive take-over raids ag ...

rescued four

Israeli hostages In 2023, as part of the October 7th attacks which initiated the Gaza war, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip, including children, women, and elderly people. Almost half of the hostages ...

held by

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

in Nuseirat, including Noa Argamani, during a rescue operation. An IDF spokesperson stated that the hostages were guarded by armed terrorists and concealed among Gazan civilians. The

Gaza Health Ministry The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM), officially the Palestinian Ministry of Health – Gaza, is responsible for managing healthcare and medical services in the Gaza Strip. The health ministry's casualty reports have received significant attention d ...

reported that at least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 wounded in the Israeli airstrikes on the refugee camp, causing international outrage and the attack deemed a

massacre A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...

. The operation took place in two sites in Nuseirat, where the hostages were kept, a school and a marketplace.

Population

References

External links

Nuseirat
articles from

UNWRA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, pronounced ) is a United Nations System, UN agency that supports the relief and Human development (economics), human development of Palestinian refugee ...

Welcome To al-Nusayrat R.C.
{{Authority control Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip Deir al-Balah Governorate 1949 establishments in All-Palestine (Gaza)