Nur Shams Media Statement February 2025
published: 24 February 2025
The ABCD Bethlehem-supported Rehabilitation Centre in Nur Shams Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank has been closed until further notice as part of the enforced evacuation of the UNRWA-run camp over the past two weeks. The Centre was offering life-changing therapies on a weekly basis to approximately 65 children and their families.
The IDF have now confirmed that the camp has been emptied of its 13,500 residents* (including 4,400 children*) and that there are no plans to allow them to return to their homes. No provision has been made for resettlement and the refugees are left to the mercy of extended family and strangers in the middle of winter.
In the past 12 months ABCD supporters have contributed the following grants to the centre:
- $20,000 core annual support
- $16,000 emergency funding
- $10,000 medical parcels
- $6,000 sponsorship of physio
- Repairs $5,000
The Centre which stands at a strategic point near the entrance to the camp has been raided and damaged by IDF soldiers on 3 separate occasions since the beginning of the conflict on 7th October 2023.
Canon Daniel Burton, Chair of ABCD Trustees said: “It is particularly cruel and ironic that Nur Shams Centre managed to stay open throughout the conflict, despite 3 separate raids on the building, but has now been forced to close only since the cease-fire began in Gaza. While the world’s attention has been rightly focused on the events in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank have faced continued restrictions and increasingly extreme forms of collective punishment. Three UNRWA-run camps on the West Bank have now been emptied of their residents – an unprecedented attack on Palestinian refugees – and a cruel blow to the children and families that we support.”
The director of the centre who cannot be named to protect her identity was not available for comment this week. ABCD project manager Firas Sarhan said: “We are trying to establish contact with our staff on the ground to identify new, remote ways of supporting these vulnerable children and their families.”
Nur Shams Centre is one of 6 rehabilitation centres in UNRWA-run refugee camps supported by the UK-based charity ABCD Bethlehem.
*UNRWA figures based on registered population in 2022