We got here to the Hitten refugee camp in Jordan to ask how individuals have been feeling.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

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Ayman Oghanna for NPR

We got here to the Hitten refugee camp in Jordan to ask how individuals have been feeling.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

AMMAN, Jordan — The idea of “home” is usually a difficult one.

Ask an individual, “Where’s home for you?” they usually might reply with the place they have been born, or the place they grew up, or the place they reside at present. This query is especially fraught for the individuals we got here to fulfill in Hitten camp, one in all 10 refugee camps in Jordan that the United Nations supplies companies for. About two million registered Palestinians reside in Jordan, probably the most of any nation.

Many individuals at Hitten, northeast of Amman, have spent a lot or all of their lives right here. But ask them the place house is, and the overwhelming reply is the Palestinian territories: Gaza or the West Bank.

We got here right here earlier in November to ask what’s on their minds, as conflict and violence unfold in locations that could be miles away, however that really feel central to their identities.

A market on the Hitten refugee camp.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

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Ayman Oghanna for NPR

A market on the Hitten refugee camp.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

The very first thing you discover when, as international journalists, you safe permission from native authorities to go to Hitten, is how everlasting it seems to be. The phrase “camp” suggests a short lived association and rows of tents. But Hitten has been right here for generations, full with concrete buildings and well-established neighborhoods dotted with mosques, slender alleys, outlets and a vigorous vegetable market.

The market is the place we discover Samir Musri. He is procuring together with his eight-year-old daughter. He was born in Amman, however has lived on this camp for years. He identifies as Palestinian, from the West Bank. As we strike up a dialog, we’re shortly interrupted by one other passerby – an older girl. She shouts that entire households are being eradicated in Gaza, that so many individuals have been killed. She tells us nobody helps them, not even fellow Arabs.

The sense of anger in Hitten is palpable. We flip again to Musri.

“Of course we’re angry, because children are being massacred,” he says by means of an interpreter. “Hospitals were bombed. So yes, it is a massacre, and people are very angry in the camp.”

Graffiti within the camp marking the Hamas Oct. 7 assault on Israel.

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Graffiti within the camp marking the Hamas Oct. 7 assault on Israel.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

Musri directs us deeper into the camp, to a neighborhood the place many Palestinians from Gaza have settled. There we stroll with Saleh Nakhleen, who’s head of logistics on the committee that runs the camp. He is without doubt one of the 90,000-odd individuals who reside in Hitten, about 20,000 of whom reside on this explicit neighborhood. He explains to us that none of them are refugees from this latest conflict.

Many of the residents have been born on this camp, and a few arrived in Jordan at different moments of battle, just like the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” – the mass displacement of 1948.

Palestinian refugees on the camp.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

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Ayman Oghanna for NPR

Palestinian refugees on the camp.

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

As we stroll with Musri, we’re approached by an older man sporting a conventional crimson and white keffiyeh. As we introduce ourselves, he stops and asks, “American?” We affirm.

Abu Emad Al Din tells us that America is the enemy, however he agrees to speak to us. Many individuals within the area really feel some model of this manner, for the reason that United States authorities – with the robust help of President Biden – supplied $14 billion in army support for Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 assaults by Hamas.

Al Din goes on to say he despises Biden, however he understands there’s a distinction between individuals and their authorities – a sentiment shared by lots of the individuals we spoke to in Jordan. Al Din was born in Gaza in 1945. He was three when his household was pressured out in the course of the Nakba, and has been right here ever since.

“I wish I could go back [to Gaza] right now,” he tells us by means of an interpreter. “I would go back in a heartbeat.”

We proceed to draw crowds all over the place we stroll. Another man invitations us into his house. His title is Majid Ghawanmeh. He’s a pharmacist.

Several others comply with Ghawanmeh and our staff into his home. We take away our sneakers and sit on brown, flowered cushions lining the wall. In the middle of the room, a TV is turned to Al Jazeera Arabic, which is exhibiting footage of the carnage in Gaza cut up display with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talking concerning the conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is seen on the tv.⁠

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is seen on the tv.⁠

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

“To be honest with you, we don’t entertain or host the enemy,” Ghawanmeh tells us by means of an interpreter. “And today, the enemy is America.”

Nonetheless, a younger boy circles the room providing every of us small thimbles of Arabic espresso and plump dates on a plate. We start to debate the conflict, and he tells us he desires to see a cease-fire, not a humanitarian pause. His spouse is Gazan and her complete household lives there.

“I never imagined in my life that a democratic country would be against a cease-fire — to stop killing civilians, despite any political motive or objective,” Ghawanmeh says. “You know what a humanitarian pause [is]? It’s a way that the Israeli military can regroup and restrategize.”

The man subsequent to Ghawanmeh tells us he was visiting the camp from Gaza for a number of months, as a result of his father is from right here. His title is Maher Rashaideh – and now, due to the conflict, he is not capable of get house.

His household, his youngsters, are all inside Gaza. His greatest precedence is simply attempting to achieve them. Internet and mobile phone service have been reduce repeatedly in Gaza prior to now month. Israel, which maintains a blockade on Gaza, hasn’t stated if it is attempting to chop off communications.

Rashaideh says when he does handle to get a name by means of, his questions and message are easy: “I told them, ‘How are you? Are you living? Take care of yourselves and your sisters.'”

Residents of the Hitten camp watch Al Jazeera. ⁠

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

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Ayman Oghanna for NPR

Residents of the Hitten camp watch Al Jazeera. ⁠

Ayman Oghanna for NPR

During our dialog, an older girl sits down with us on the cushions. Eventually we notice that she does not know anybody within the room – she simply noticed us strolling the camp, wished to talk to us, and adopted us proper right into a stranger’s house.

She requested us to establish her as Um Mohammed, as a result of she’s anxious concerning the potential safety dangers for her daughters who’re nonetheless residing in Gaza. She got here to this camp when she bought married, however is from Gaza.

“I don’t cook anymore. I don’t eat anymore because of what is happening in Gaza,” she says by means of an interpreter. Two of her daughters are sheltering at a U.N. faculty in Gaza close to Rafah Crossing.

“I don’t sleep,” she continues. “You know what my children did? They intentionally broke my TV so I don’t watch what is happening there. So I’m on the phone all the time.”

Between tears, she tells us she’s been in Jordan for 46 years. When we ask her the place house is, she factors – proper across the nook. But her coronary heart, she says, is in Gaza.

When requested if she thinks she’ll see Gaza once more, she throws up her palms: “Inshallah.” God prepared. The males across the room nod.

Local producer Rana Sweis contributed to this report.