03/12/2002

Nearly 4 million Palestinian refugees are registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jordan, Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon, Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. As defined by UNRWA, these refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 (and their descendents) and who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.

In Lebanon, almost half of the Palestinian refugee population resides in camps that have very high per capita density and dangerously deteriorated infrastructure. They are unable to work in more than 70 professions that are restricted to Lebanese nationals. They are given low priority or face discrimination in accessing education, health care, and social benefits outside of UNRWA’s scope of services.

An RI team has just completed an initial assessment of the current humanitarian situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and the international community’s response to it by conducting interviews with refugees as well as speaking with representatives of local non-governmental agencies working in the camps and our counterparts in the international community. RI is presently examining the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.