The race against time to save the UN's Palestinian refugee archive: A tale of resilience and resistance
In the summer of 2024, a clandestine mission unfolded, a desperate attempt to preserve the history of a people. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) embarked on a perilous journey to safeguard its archives, a treasure trove of Palestinian history, from the encroaching shadows of conflict and political turmoil.
The mission, a 10-month operation, was a testament to the resilience of UNRWA staff and the agency's commitment to its mission. The archives, held in Gaza and East Jerusalem, were a window into the past, detailing the experiences of Palestinians during the wars that led to the creation of Israel in 1948. These documents, including registration cards, birth, marriage, and death certificates, were crucial for Palestinians seeking to trace their family origins and understand their displacement.
The urgency of the mission was heightened by the political climate. UNRWA's compound in East Jerusalem had become a target of Israeli efforts to expel the agency, and right-wing groups were intensifying their attacks. The archives, detailing the experiences of Palestinians during the 1948 wars, were at risk of destruction, a catastrophic loss of historical evidence.
Roger Hearn, a senior UNRWA official, emphasized the significance of the archives: "Their destruction would have been catastrophic... If there is ever a just and durable solution to this conflict, then this is the only evidence people can use to show there were once Palestinians living in a particular place."
The mission began with a dramatic and risky first stage. As Israel invaded Gaza, UNRWA's offices were evacuated, and international staff were forced to leave, unable to take the archives with them. The risk of Israeli forces destroying the documents was real, and the agency's digital registration system had been temporarily shut down after a hack, raising concerns about the fate of scanned records.
Despite the ongoing airstrikes and shelling, a small team of UNRWA officials braved the dangers, driving rented pickup trucks to Gaza City and making three trips to bring the documents to a food warehouse in Rafah, on the border with Egypt. However, Egypt's refusal to allow the archives out without Israeli consultation presented a new challenge.
UNRWA officials, equipped with international passports, were tasked with a covert operation. They carried the documents out unobserved, using the cover of carrying paperwork to avoid detection. Over the next six months, the documents were collated in Egypt and transported by a Jordanian charity using military planes, a delicate operation that required careful planning and execution.
But the mission was not without further obstacles. The East Jerusalem compound faced intensified Israeli accusations of collaboration with Hamas and a campaign of obstruction and harassment. By early 2024, the compound was targeted by protests and arson attacks, causing extensive damage. The expulsion of UNRWA was gathering pace, and the staff had to act quickly.
With time running out, the archives were secretly transferred over several months, eventually reaching UNRWA offices in Jordan. In January 2025, new Israeli laws barred the agency from Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, further complicating the situation.
In Amman, a new effort was launched to digitize the documents, a laborious process funded by Luxembourg. Over 50 UNRWA staff worked in a cramped basement, scanning postcard-sized original refugee registration documents and millions of other items by hand. The goal was to provide every Palestinian refugee with their family tree and supporting documents, as well as build maps of displacement patterns in 1948.
Dr. Anne Irfan, a historian of the modern Middle East, emphasized the significance of the archives: "The Palestinians are a stateless people and without a fully unified national archive... so the UNRWA archive has a particular significance for them."
The digitized archives offer a wealth of historical inquiry, exploring the experiences of Palestinian refugees, the role of the UN and international community, and the complex politics of the Middle East over the last 80 years. As Dr. Irfan notes, "It is highly contested history, and history that has potentially very real ramifications for the present."
The mission to save the UNRWA archives is a testament to the resilience of those who sought to preserve history in the face of adversity. It highlights the importance of historical records in understanding the past and shaping the future, especially for a people whose history is often contested and at risk of erasure.
