Jacob's Well and Balata Refugee Camp

Jacob's Well (sorry as we're not up on our Bible can't remember what was supposed to have happened here) but it's situated within the most enormous and opulent Greek Orthodox Church. Somebody must have spent a fortune on it. Anyway we were told the depth of the well (but can't remember that either) except to say the guide poured some water down and we had to wait for what seemed like an age for it to reach the bottom. We pulled some up in a bucket and each drank cold clear water from the holy well. Then all trooped off to the well-appointed loos.

Almost immediately opposite is Balata Refugee Camp, an area of 1 sq km, established around 1950 for 5,000 people. Initially there were tents but after a few years the UN built small dwellings. I've got a photo of the original ones (which form the base of present dwellings): each one measured 3 x 3m, irrespective of family size. The camp's now home to 25,000 with no increase in ground area. Roads have been sacrificed for building space and homes are packed so tightly together that there is absolutely no privacy and our guide said people don't refer to those next door as neighbours, but as family. My photos which I'll post later will show you but anyone reading this who lives in Exeter and knows Parliament Street (narrowest street in UK) will know what I mean. And of course having to build upwards shuts out any light.

Our guide told us his family's story which typifies the general plight - his grandfather was a relatively wealthy man in Haifa with restaurants and a hotel. After the nakba he fled with his heavily pregnant wife, leaving all behind. They walked to this area and found refuge in a cave where his mother was born in August 1948. They lived in this cave for a year. He said his mother had had a very hard time, with little or no medical attention in her life and now looks 90 (she's 3 years younger than me..) The camp has 1 doctor, 1 dentist and a couple of nurses for the whole population so can do little more than general check ups. If surgery or more complicated treatment's needed they have to go to hospital in Nablus or beyond and pay two thirds of the cost (UN paying the rest).

He said life during the 2nd intifada was grim (2001-4) - locked gates, no exit for education or work, curfews inside the camp, people unable to leave their houses and others shot for simply looking out of a window. All economic structure within the camp and Nablus were destroyed. We can have absolutely no idea of what this does to the mental state of the inhabitants, especially the young.