Ain Al-Helwa was established in 1948 to house the exodus of Palestinians fleeing their homeland. On entry to the camp, you are greeted by tight security and an overhead banner decreeing the will of the Palestinian people inside.
Sidon - a poor but dignified city in Lebanon - is left behind, and you are transported to another, more sinister, world, a world governed by different rules, whose people live in the hope that they will one day return to a free and peaceful Palestine.
I found the head of the Fatah movement (the leading Palestinian political party in the Middle East) within the camp, Ahmad Shabaytah, a likeable man, and was struck by his willingness to wax lyrical over the desperate social conditions of Ain Al-Helwa. In a room occupied by four minders and a rifle-carrying guard, Shabaytah - himself born and raised in the camp - spoke of the irony regarding the formation of the site.
"This land was given to us in 1948 by the Lebanese government, which sympathised with us at the time, as temporary accommodation for the Palestinian people," he says.
"But look at us now - we've been here for 54 years. We used to be 35,000, but since the internal conflict in Lebanon a lot of refugees flooded into the camp until it swelled to the 70,000 it is now. The expansion of the camp in population, however, was not matched in improvement of the general situation. The day-to-day life here is the responsibility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which is not fulfilling its duties due to external pressure from the US."
Sidon - a poor but dignified city in Lebanon - is left behind, and you are transported to another, more sinister, world, a world governed by different rules, whose people live in the hope that they will one day return to a free and peaceful Palestine.
I found the head of the Fatah movement (the leading Palestinian political party in the Middle East) within the camp, Ahmad Shabaytah, a likeable man, and was struck by his willingness to wax lyrical over the desperate social conditions of Ain Al-Helwa. In a room occupied by four minders and a rifle-carrying guard, Shabaytah - himself born and raised in the camp - spoke of the irony regarding the formation of the site.
"This land was given to us in 1948 by the Lebanese government, which sympathised with us at the time, as temporary accommodation for the Palestinian people," he says.
"But look at us now - we've been here for 54 years. We used to be 35,000, but since the internal conflict in Lebanon a lot of refugees flooded into the camp until it swelled to the 70,000 it is now. The expansion of the camp in population, however, was not matched in improvement of the general situation. The day-to-day life here is the responsibility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which is not fulfilling its duties due to external pressure from the US."