BAGHDAD — Omar Ahmed rarely emerges from his rundown Baghdad housing project. When he does, he leaves behind the Iraqi-issued ID card that marks him as a Palestinian and switches to the Iraqi dialect of Arabic at police checkpoints.
The 23-year-old keeps a low profile because of repeated attacks and harassment of Palestinians, still resented by many Iraqis for what was perceived as their privileged status under Sad dam Hussein.
Ahmed’s father was gunned down in a Baghdad street in 2005, one of an estimated 300 Palestinians killed in sectarian attacks since the fall of Saddam in 2003.
In recent months, street violence has dropped sharply across the country. But the Palestinians, who number about 11,000 and mostly live in Baghdad, remain one of the most vulnerable groups, said Daniel Endres, the envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq.
In recent days, Iraq’s Shiite-led government has taken steps to reach out to the community, which settled in Iraq after the 1948 Mideast war over Israel’s creation and grew to 35,000 before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Starting next month, Palestinians will get new ID cards, replacing those from the Saddam era. The new cards state that bearers are to be treated like Iraqi citizens, according to a Palestinian diplomat in Baghdad, Dalil Qassous. Distributed with U.N. backing, the cards seek to reduce harassment at checkpoints and will make Palestinians eligible for some welfare payments.
But many Iraqis still resent the Palestinians, who are Sunnis, for what they think were unfair privileges granted to them by Hussein, including housing subsidies and draft exemptions.
A Palestinian nurse at a clinic run by the Palestinian Red Crescent, Lousiana Amir, said fear keeps her shuttling just between home and work, and that she stays in touch with Iraqi friends by phone. Her husband has been missing since being seized in a police raid in 2005.
Amir, 25, said she would stay in Baghdad even if offered asylum elsewhere.
“I feel it is my homeland,” she said.
