Aqabat Jaber is a Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 refugee camp in the Jericho Governorate

Jericho Governorate

The Jericho Governorate is one of 16 Governorates of the Palestinian National Authority within the Palestinian territories. It is located along the eastern areas of the West Bank, along the northern Dead Sea and southern Jordan River valley bordering Jordan...

 of the eastern West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

, situated in the Jordan Valley

Jordan Valley (Middle East)

The Jordan Valley forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. It is 120 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide, where it runs from Lake Tiberias in the north to northern Dead Sea in the south. It runs for an additional 155 kilometer south of the Dead Sea to Aqaba, an area also known as Wadi...

, three kilometers southwest of Jericho

Jericho

Jericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...

.

History

Aqabat Jaber was established in 1948 on 1,688 dunam

Dunam

A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

s of arid land near the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War

Six-Day War

The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...

, the number of registered Palestinian refugee

Palestinian refugee

Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...

s totaled around 30,000. During and after the hostilities, the majority of refugees fled the camp and crossed the Jordan River. Following the signing of the Cairo Agreement

Cairo agreement

The Cairo agreement or Cairo accord was an agreement reached on 2 November 1969 during talks between Yassir Arafat and the Lebanese army commander General Emile Bustani...

 in 1994, the camp came under the control of the Palestinian National Authority

Palestinian National Authority

The Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

.

Today, Aqabat Jaber has a small population of only 5,566 registered refugees. Non-refugees have moved onto the camp's lands and built illegal homes.

Water availability

Water scarcity is a major problem in this desert area, especially during the summer. The UNRWA is able to provide some water to the camp by pumping it from a nearby spring. However, the Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i water company Mekorot

Mekorot

Mekorot is the national water company of Israel and the country's top agency for water management.Mekorot was founded in 1937. It supplies 90% of Israel's drinking water and 80% of its water supplies. The company runs 3,000 installations throughout the country for water supply, water quality,...

 is the main supplier of water to the camp.

External link

• Aqbat Jaber refugee camp, UNRWA