Before the Syrian conflict in Syria began in March 2011 around 560,000 registered Palestinian refugees lived in Syria. Following five years of civil war, more than half of these people have lost their homes, and nearly all are in dire need of aid.
An estimated 110,000 Palestinians have fled Syria since 2011 according to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency). Approximately 17,000 of these people now live Jordan and around 45,000 in Lebanon, many in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.i Over 3,000 have died inside Syria itself.
Palestinian refugees cannot register with UNHCR and instead rely on UNRWA for healthcare, education and often food and basic income. However UNRWA is struggling with a significant shortfall in funding from international donors, and in 2015 was forced to suspend the rent support payments it provided to these refugees due to lack of funds. The Palestinians were forced into exile in Syria owing to the seizure of their homes and land by the Israeli armed forces. Now they are homeless again.
If you were able to trace the ancestry of these poor people, you could arguably discover that their forebears lived in Palestine, generation after generation, for centuries; were peasants on the land when their fellow Israelite city dwellers were forced into exile by the Romans, and, later, were converted to Islam in the 7th Century by invading Mohammedans. Their plight is shocking and our individual ability to help them frustratingly poor. Nearly all the publicity is hostile to them; most have done nothing more than strive to survive. We should at least try to get UNRWA, (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) funded. It is the humane and civilised thing to do. Leave aside the disagreeable politics; do the decent thing.
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All refugees, regardless of their nationality or country of origin, should receive as much support as possible. I’ve argued that the UK and the US should take in more refugees than they currently are, especially the latter because of its size and wealth. It also seems very arbitrary and bizarre that Palestinian refugees should be categorised differently by the UN.
You’re right to highlight the suffering of the Palestinian people. But I’m afraid I have much less sympathy, if none at all, for their political representatives. That may sound obvious, but the UN hasn’t held Fatah, Hamas and their allies accountable for the suffering of the people they are supposed to be responsible for. A friend of mine was in Ramallah for part of the summer; the neighbourhoods where Palestinian officials lived were filled with expensive houses and cars. The aid money keeps flowing in, yet the people continue to suffer.