GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In the northern Gaza district of al-Saftawi, the Nawar neighborhood remains socially isolated from its surroundings. Many Gazans discriminate against the Nawari community based on old societal beliefs.

Mussa Natour, a researcher on Palestinian history and member of the Palestinian Curriculum Development Center at the Ministry of Education, stressed to Al-Monitor that there are no Gypsy communities in Palestine at present and that the Roma groups that once spread throughout the Levant area have left Palestine because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He explained that although Gazans consider the Nawaris Gypsies, they are not. They are a separate community. He added, “Nawaris in Palestine are treated the same way as the Roma community is treated in other countries, since the Nawaris’ customs and traditions are similar to those of the Roma community.” These rituals run contrary to the traditions of Gazan society, which has been heavily influenced by Islamic rule, especially after Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Al-Monitor visited the Nawar neighborhood, which hosts the second largest population of Nawaris of Palestine. The Nawar neighborhood of Jerusalem is home to the largest Nawari population in the Palestinian territories.

Amal Anwar, 70, is one of the oldest women in the Nawar neighborhood. She told Al-Monitor, “Before the Palestinian Nakba, when I was only two years old, we lived in the east of Jabalia. Other Nawaris lived in other Palestinian areas and were fully integrated with Palestinian society, even if we had different roots. But as a result of harassment and oppression that our community faced within society over decades, especially in the 1970s, when our women would dance and sing, Nawaris all moved in the 1980s to a vacant area in al-Saftawi district." The area is now known as the Nawar neighborhood.