The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the Nakba, the 1948 Palestine War, and subsequent conflicts, as well as their descendants, including legally adopted children. As of 2019, more than 5.6 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA as refugees.
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refugees live in or near 68 Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 2019 more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations.
Amman New Camp, usually known as the Al-Wehdat or Al-Wihdat camp, which is located in the Hay Al Awdah neighbourhood in southeast Amman, the capital city of Jordan, occupies a 0.48 km2 (0.19 sq mi), Of the ten recognized Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Al-Wehdat is the second largest, with a population of roughly 57,000 registered refugees, which includes 8,400 students. The United Nation body responsible for administrating Palestinian refugee camps, is the Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Dheisheh is a Palestinian refugee camp located just south of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Dheisheh was established in 1949 on 0.31 square kilometers of land leased from the Jordanian government. The camp was established as a temporary refuge for 3,400 Palestinians from 45 villages west of Jerusalem and Hebron displaced in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight which occurred during the 1948 Palestine war. The camp had a population of 8,805 in 2017.
Ain al-Hilweh, also spelled as Ayn al-Hilweh and Ein El Hilweh, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. It had a population of over 70,000 Palestinian refugees but swelled to nearly 120,000, as a result of influx of refugees from Syria since 2011. The camp is located west of the village Miye ou Miye and the Mieh Mieh refugee camp, southeast of the port city of Sidon and north of Darb Es Sim.
The Shatila refugee camp, also known as the Chatila refugee camp, is a settlement originally set up for Palestinian refugees in 1949. It is located in southern Beirut, Lebanon and houses more than 9,842 registered Palestine refugees. Since the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, the refugee camp has received a large number of Syrian refugees. In 2014, the camp's population was estimated to be between 10,000 and 22,000.
Deir al-Balah Camp is a Palestinian refugee camp in the Deir al-Balah Governorate of the southern Gaza Strip, located one kilometer northwest of the center of Deir al-Balah city, of which it practically forms part. The camp consists of concrete buildings and has eight schools, sewers, and other municipal services. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the camp had a population of 6,985 in 2017. It is the smallest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Deir al-Balah Camp is built on an area of 0.16 square kilometers. As of July 2023, the population registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was 26,674 persons.
Nahr al-Bared is a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, 16 km from the city of Tripoli. Some 30,000 displaced Palestinians and their descendants live in and around the camp, which was named after the river that runs south of the camp. Under the terms of the 1969 Cairo Agreement, the Lebanese Army does not conventionally enter the Palestinian camps, and internal security is provided by Palestinian factions.
Aida, also spelled 'Ayda, is a Palestinian refugee camp situated 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) north of the historic centre of Bethlehem and 1 km (0.62 mi) north of Beit Jala, in the central West Bank, State of Palestine.
The Marka refugee camp is one of six emergency camps erected in 1968 to shelter 15,000 Palestinian refugees fleeing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip due to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Located in the Marka district of metropolitan Amman, about ten kilometers northeast of the city center, it is known locally as Hittin (حطين) or Schneller and houses 44,879 UNRWA registered refugees and over 17,500 displaced persons.
Al-Shati, also known as Shati or Beach camp, is a Palestinian refugee camp located in the northern Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean Sea coastline in the Gaza Governorate, and more specifically Gaza City.
ʿEin es-Sulṭān camp, or ʿEin Sultan camp, is a refugee camp in the Jericho Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the Jordan Valley, in the eastern West Bank. The village is located adjacent to the Ein es-Sultan or Elisha Spring, for which it is named, and the archaeological site of Tell es-Sultan, 1 kilometer north-west of the city of Jericho.
Mieh Mieh refugee camp is a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, located on the outskirts of Mieh Mieh village in the hills 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) east of the southern city of Sidon. The original refugees in the camp generally came from Saffourieh, Tiereh, Haifa and Miron, in what is now Israel. It was established in 1954 on land leased from private landowners of the Miye ou Miye village. Around the 1990s, the Mieh Mieh camp was located on 60 dunams in Miye ou Miye village. Today, the camp is 1.8 times that size at 108 dunams. In 2003, it had a population of 5,037.
The Hamas–UNRWA Holocaust dispute erupted on 31 August 2009 following a perception in the Gaza Strip that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) planned to include a course on human rights that speaks about the Holocaust in the eighth-grade curriculum of preparatory schools it runs in the territory. The militant Islamic movement Hamas, which partially controls the Gaza Strip, protested, calling the Holocaust "a lie made up by the Zionists" and demanding the removal of the offending content from the curriculum. Some officials of the United Nations agency initially responded by denying that it teaches the subject of the Holocaust in its schools or that it plans to teach it in its new curriculum. This denial drew criticism from various groups and individuals.
Palestinians in Lebanon include the Palestinian refugees who fled to Lebanon during the Nakba, their descendants, the Palestinian militias which resided in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s, and Palestinian nationals who moved to Lebanon from countries experiencing conflict, such as Syria. There are roughly 3,000 registered Palestinians and their descendants who hold no identification cards, including refugees of the 1967 Naksa. Many Palestinians in Lebanon are refugees and their descendants, who have been barred from naturalisation, retaining stateless refugee status. However, some Palestinians, mostly Christian women, have received Lebanese citizenship, in some cases through marriage with Lebanese nationals.
Syrian refugee camp and shelters are temporary settlements built to receive internally displaced people and refugees of the Syrian Civil War. Of the estimated 7 million persons displaced within Syria, only a small minority live in camps or collective shelters. Similarly, of the 8 million refugees, only about 10 percent live in refugee camps, with the vast majority living in both urban and rural areas of neighboring countries. Beside Syrians, they include Iraqis, Palestinians, Kurds, Yazidis, individuals from Somalia, and a minority of those who fled the Yemeni and Sudanese civil wars.
Present absentees are Arab internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled or were expelled from their homes in Mandatory Palestine during the 1947–1949 Palestine war but remained within the area that became the state of Israel.
Palestinians in Syria are people of Palestinian origin, most of whom have been residing in Syria after they were displaced from their homeland during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. Palestinians hold most of the same rights as the Syrian population, but cannot become Syrian nationals except in rare cases. In 2011, there were 526,744 registered Palestinian refugees in Syria. Due to the Syrian Civil War, the number of registered refugees has since dropped to about 450,000 due to many Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon, Jordan or elsewhere in the region to escaping to Europe as refugees, especially to Germany and Sweden.
Talbieh Camp is one of the 10 officially recognized UNRWA Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. It is located about 35 kilometres south of Amman, placing it within the main urban area of Al-Jeezah, immediately to the west of where Desert Highway passes through the town. The refugee camp is also slightly south of the more recently built Queen Alia International Airport.
Internally displaced persons in Syria are more than half the people fleeing the Syrian Civil War moved only within Syria itself. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 7 million persons in Syria are internally displaced or in need of humanitarian assistance, as of 2017. Most live in houses, often badly damaged by the war. Due to security concerns, poor access to areas of need and unpredictability, humanitarian efforts were directed at emergency aid. The complexity of administrative procedures and limited capacity of NGOs permitted to operate in Syria are also cited as challenges to assistance.
