57 Years Later, Why Does Jordan’s Baqaa Refugee Camp Still Exist?
Jordan’s largest Palestinian refugee camp remains a symbol of statelessness, with ex-Gazans facing legal limbo and limited rights
Just 12 miles north of Amman lies the Baqaa refugee camp. Established in 1968 to accommodate Palestinians displaced in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Baqaa was intended as a temporary shelter. More than five decades later, it has evolved into the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, with over 100,000 residents and one of the highest population densities in the world.
Estimates suggest that young people under the age of 30 make up more than 60% of Baqaa’s population. For these tens of thousands of young Palestinians, life in the camp is defined by a precarious legal status and fading hopes of returning to their homeland.
“Baqaa Camp is not just a humanitarian issue—it’s a political one,” Abu Ghaleb, a Baqaa resident and historian of Palestinian refugees, told The Media Line. “The camp represents the unresolved Palestinian question and the ongoing denial of the right of return. Refugees are not living with dignity, and basic services continue to deteriorate.”
Though many residents of Baqaa, one of 10 official Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, are now Jordanian citizens, a significant portion are not. Unlike most Palestinians displaced from the West Bank, those who fled Gaza after 1967 were never granted Jordanian citizenship.
An estimated 150,000 former Gazans currently live in Jordan, with the majority residing in refugee camps such as Baqaa and Jerash. Without citizenship, they cannot vote, own property, or work in the public sector. They are also barred from accessing many university scholarships and state-subsidized services.
“The ex-Gazans weren’t registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] as refugees from the West Bank. They were left without Egyptian and Jordanian nationalities. That left them stateless: living in Jordan, but not part of the system,” Abu Ghaleb explained.
Young people feel lost. They can’t pursue higher education or work in the formal sector. It’s as if they don’t exist.
Muhammad Shafut, a Baqaa resident, political activist, and former Muslim Brotherhood leader, described “generations” of Palestinians in Jordan living without citizenship. “Young people feel lost. They can’t pursue higher education or work in the formal sector. It’s as if they don’t exist,” he told The Media Line.
“This is a political issue, not just a humanitarian one. The Palestinian [from the West Bank] in Jordan has rights and duties, but the ex-Gazan has no rights, no nationality, and no political representation. It’s both legal and human marginalization,” Shafut explained.
That loss of connection extends even further. In the past, movements like the Muslim Brotherhood helped fill social and political gaps in the camp, offering education and community services. Today, Shafut said, young people are critical of nearly all the bodies trying to represent the Palestinians, including both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.
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UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for supporting Palestinian refugees, continues to operate in Baqaa, running schools, clinics, and sanitation networks. However, the agency has faced repeated budget shortfalls in recent years, resulting in teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and reductions in medical personnel and pharmaceutical supplies.
“UNRWA was created to serve the refugees until they could return,” Abu Ghaleb said. “But now its role is shrinking. Funding cuts are hitting education, health care, and sanitation. People feel abandoned, especially the younger generation,” he added.
The PA, which is headquartered in Ramallah, officially has no jurisdiction in Jordan. Many say that the absence of even symbolic representation deepens the sense of abandonment.
“We don’t have the authority to resolve these legal issues in the host countries,” Mamdouh Jabr, the PA’s former assistant minister of foreign affairs, told The Media Line. “The situation of the ex-Gazans is complicated. We’ve raised it many times, but without cooperation from Jordan and the international community, we’re stuck.”
He said that the authority’s “hands are tied” when it comes to preserving the rights of Palestinian refugees abroad. “We can’t offer citizenship, and we’re not allowed to operate freely in the diaspora,” he said.
The Oslo Accords of the 1990s, signed between representatives of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, “limited us geographically,” Jabr continued. Those agreements envisioned interim Palestinian self-government in Gaza and parts of the West Bank, setting aside the issue of Palestinian refugees abroad for “final status negotiations” that never took place.
He added that the international community “limited us politically.”
“Jordan alone hosts millions of Palestinians. Leaving them out of the national conversation weakens our cause and deepens the divisions among our people,” Jabr said.
Hamada Faraneh, a former Jordanian lawmaker and former adviser to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, also emphasized the decreasing scope of Palestinian leadership.
“The PA became isolated, and Israel played a role in that too. Now it governs only from Ramallah. It has no real presence in Gaza, not in Jerusalem, and not in the diaspora,” Faraneh told The Media Line. “That’s a big shift from the days of Arafat, who led from exile, from Tunisia, from the battlefield, and from the political arena.”
He explained that while Jordan continues to publicly support the Palestinian cause, its domestic policy clearly distinguishes between citizens and refugees.
“Jordan wants to maintain its sovereignty and avoid being seen as an alternative homeland for Palestinians,” he said. “That’s why the government maintains a distinction—not just on paper, but in actual policy. It’s a way to protect Jordan’s national identity, but it leaves many Palestinians feeling excluded.”
While the official narrative in Jordan is one of support for the Palestinian cause, “the daily reality for refugees in the camps tells a much more complicated story,” Faraneh said.
The camps must be part of the future, not just relics of the past
“The camps must be part of the future, not just relics of the past,” he continued. “If we want a real solution, we have to listen to the people who’ve lived this reality their entire lives.”
For many, that reality is still one of suspended rights and shrinking options.
You can’t ask people to wait forever
“You can’t ask people to wait forever,” Abu Ghaleb, the historian from Baqaa, said. “Either you give them rights where they are, or you offer a path to return. But leaving them stateless and voiceless—that’s not justice.”
