Urbicide and Coming to Terms with the Past: Everyday Acts of Return and Reconstruction in Post-war Nahr el Bared

ABSTRACT∞ The violent destruction of Nahr el Bared refugee camp – the second biggest Palestinian camp in Lebanon – in 2007 and its community’s efforts to reclaim justice through post-war reconstruction make it a compelling case to study the intersection of urbicide and transitional justice. Utilizing the concept of grassroots transitional justice and building on recent scholarship on urban warfare and urbicidal violence, this article examines how Palestinians of Nahr el Bared have developed creative infrastructures of justice in extreme conditions of urbicide. By shedding light on urbicide as a form of political violence and its role in producing violations of human rights – particularly those related to socio-economic rights, displacement and destruction of space, memory and identity – the article suggests that post-war reconstruction can and should be viewed as a matter of justice. Linking the concepts of urbicide, transitional justice and post-war reconstruction, the article explores a model of transitional justice that engages with restoration of truth, memorialization and governance in the post-war reconstruction process. By highlighting narratives, stories and memories that focus on the destruction, the siege, the suspended home and the need for return, memorialization and reconstruction, the article explores the grassroots conception of justice for the displaced Palestinian community and examines how transitional justice might be reconfigured in the aftermath of urbicide.