Forgotten Palestinians: The Decades-Long Struggle of Egypt’s Canada Camp Residents

After Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, a newly erected fence turned Rafah into a divided city, trapping over 4,000 Palestinians on the Egyptian side in a UNRWA-administered housing complex known as Canada Camp. The camp’s residents lived without Egyptian citizenship or permission to re-enter Gaza, communicating with relatives only through a narrow “shouting fence.” Political opposition in Israel, limited funding and bureaucratic inertia prolonged their exile for nearly two decades, despite a 1991 agreement that promised relocation.

With Canadian financial support, the final group of 4,388 people moved to the Tel-Al Sultan settlement in Gaza by 2000, only to face renewed buffer-zone expansions during the Second Intifada. Today, an estimated 200,000 Palestinians remain in Egypt under similar restrictions, highlighting a persistent pattern of forced limbo and denied right of return.