In 1949, the Red Crescent established Qalandiya refugee camp about seven miles north of Jerusalem at that time to house Palestinian refugees displaced from around 52 villages in the areas of Jerusalem, Ramle, and Hebron during the 1948 War1 (see The Red Crescent Society Supports Jerusalemites through Every Stage of Life). Initially, this consisted simply of rows of fabric tents erected on 230 dunams of land leased by Jordan.2 Life during the first two winters was brutal. In 1951, the camp’s administration was taken over by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provided the approximately 3,000 inhabitants3 with schooling, health clinics, and vocational training in the camp, alongside recreational and sports activities organized for camp youth as part of its broader education and welfare programming.4
Photo
Basketball at Qalandiya Camp
A female team plays basketball at Qalandiya refugee camp north of Jerusalem in the West Bank soon after the camp was established in 1949 in the wake of the 1948 War.
Credit:
Palestine Remembered
Notes
1
Wikipedia, s.v. “Qalandia Camp” [in Arabic], last modified June 13, 2026, 00:04.
2
Wikipedia, s.v. “Qalandia Camp.”
3
Wikipedia, s.v. “Qalandia Camp.”
4
Ahmad Alaqra, “To Subvert, to Deconstruct: Agency in Qalandiya Refugee Camp,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 79 (Autumn 2019): 63–76.