Al-Shati Refugee Camp

Al-Shati lies on Gaza’s northern coastline, approximately a mile from Gaza’s harbor; its alternative name, Beach camp, reflects this seaside location.[2][6] The camp combines the designation of a refugee camp with the built form of a dense residential neighborhood, described in September 2025 as including high-rise buildings.[3] The spelling “Shatti” is also used in its formal classification as a Gaza Strip refugee camp.[7]

A January 2013 profile placed the camp’s area at 0.52 square kilometres and described it as one of Gaza’s most crowded camps, with streets and alleys that were often very narrow.[1] The coastal setting was important to fishing livelihoods, while the camp also contained schools, a health centre, food distribution facilities, and small businesses.[1]

A January 2013 UNRWA profile said the camp initially accommodated approximately 23,000 refugees from Lydd, Jaffa, Be’er Sheva, and other areas of Palestine.[1] Over time, Al-Shati developed into a dense residential neighborhood.[3] Many residents moved into permanent neighborhoods elsewhere in Gaza City, particularly nearby Sheikh Radwan.[8]

In July 1971, Israeli forces relocated approximately 10,500 people from northern Gaza refugee camps, including Al-Shati and Jabalia, to Al-Arish in northern Sinai, while a smaller number were taken to the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[4] This was a combined figure for the camps involved, not an Al-Shati-specific total.[4] The cited accounts described the operation as intended to curb attacks and reported that families were offered destinations in the West Bank, elsewhere in Gaza, or Al-Arish.[4][9]

Some residents fled rather than move into the offered apartments, and UN refugee-agency employees went on strike in protest.[9] Experiences after relocation varied: some residents expressed satisfaction with their housing and treatment, while others complained about apartment allocation, separation from relatives and acquaintances, and difficulties fitting into Al-Arish.[9]

Ahmed Yassin arrived in Al-Shati as a boy and grew up in the camp, which was identified in a 2024 account as the location where he established Hamas.[8] In June 2014, Ismail Haniya attended the opening of a Hamas summer camp at Al-Shati and said that the continuation of such camps demonstrated that Hamas “adheres to its path of jihad.”[10] The wider program operated in 17 refugee camps across Gaza; approximately 100,000 participants were reported for Hamas summer camps, compared with more than 120,000 children and students in summer camps overall.[10]

In 2023, Al-Shati had 90,173 registered refugees and ranked as the Gaza Strip’s third-largest refugee camp.[2] Registration figures describe people registered as refugees, not necessarily all residents physically present in the camp.[2]

Earlier figures provide dated snapshots rather than a continuous population series: the January 2013 profile listed more than 87,000 refugees, and a 2020 estimate placed the number of Palestinian residents at nearly 90,000.[1][11] A 2026 listing gave a population of 85,000 without specifying the date or basis of its estimate.[12] The much larger population and departure figures reported during the November 2023 operation did not explain their geographical scope or estimation method.[13][14]

Fishing livelihoods were particularly important to Beach camp: the January 2013 profile linked an Israeli three-mile fishing limit to diminished catches, lost livelihoods, and increased poverty.[1] A job-creation project at Gaza port provided hundreds of fishermen with short-term work repairing nets, cleaning the area, and compiling fishing statistics.[1] That support was subsequently cut because of funding shortfalls in UNRWA’s 2011 Emergency Appeal.[1]

The same 2013 snapshot recorded increased unemployment following the blockade, fewer families able to support themselves, and extensive dependence on UNRWA food and cash assistance.[1] Restrictions on cement and gravel prevented shelter construction and repairs, while 90 percent of the water was reported unfit for human consumption.[1] These conditions are dated to that profile and are not a current assessment.[1]

Small-scale enterprise included a sugarcane and natural-fruit-juice shop established by Saleh Farahat in 2005 with a US$600 microfinance loan.[1] His capital later reached US$7,000, and additional loans helped him expand the shop, purchase equipment, and grow and harvest his own sugarcane.[1]

Individual accounts illustrate the camp’s overcrowding and household hardship: in 2018, 19-year-old Shams al-Asil lived with ten other people in a single room with crumbling walls.[15] She said her family had no electricity and that she could not afford university.[15]

The Women’s Empowerment Center at Beach Camp was documented during President Bill Clinton’s Middle East trip. On December 14, 1998, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Shouha Arafat greeted UNRWA Board members there, and Clinton addressed the center.[16]

A January 2013 profile listed one food distribution centre and one health centre in the camp. It also recorded 16 school buildings operating double shifts to accommodate 32 schools, with an additional afternoon school using a Palestinian Authority building.[1]

During the 2014 Gaza war, 45 members of a family displaced from Shejaiya moved into a relative’s home in Al-Shati; an Israeli airstrike hit a neighboring house a few hours after their arrival.[5] In its account of July 28, 2014, the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs stated that rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza struck Shifa Hospital and Shati refugee camp.[17]

In May 2021, Palestinian reports cited by Ynet described at least seven children or teenagers and two women as killed in a strike on a residential building in the camp.[18] The Israeli military spokesperson said that the target was several Hamas officials in an apartment used as terrorist infrastructure.[18]

On November 14, 2023, Ynet reported that the IDF said Israeli forces had taken operational control of Al-Shati after fighting in the camp.[14] The report relayed IDF claims about Hamas infrastructure and weapons found in a school.[14] The Meir Amit Center separately relayed the IDF’s statement that troops taking control of the Governor’s House found weapons and documents taken from IDF posts during the October 7, 2023 attacks.[19]

Wartime population reporting differed substantially from earlier camp estimates: a November 2023 account put the population shortly before the operation at approximately 150,000, while another reported an estimated 150,000–200,000 Palestinians fleeing as Israeli troops entered.[13][14] These figures describe reports from that operation rather than a current population count.[13][14]

On June 24, 2024, Israeli aircraft attacked two buildings in Al-Shati that the IDF said were used by Hamas operatives.[20] Palestinian accounts separately reported that ten people, including children, were killed in an attack on UNRWA’s Asmaa Elementary School in the camp.[20] In September 2025, a few thousand residents were reported to remain, and Israeli forces were reported to have left part of the area unencircled to allow residents to leave.[3]

Accounts of military targets and civilian deaths require distinction between the claims involved: in the May 2021 strike, Palestinian reports described children and women killed, while the Israeli military identified Hamas officials and terrorist infrastructure as its target.[18] The November 2023 descriptions of Hamas facilities and weapons discoveries likewise originated in Israeli military announcements, rather than independently established findings in the cited reporting.[19][14] The unusually high departure estimate of 150,000–200,000 people during that operation was not accompanied by an explanation of its scope or method.[13]