MONTHLY MEMO
This monthly bulletin provides an update on the condition of Palestinian refugees around the world over the past month. It covers stories from the Occupied Territories, UNRWA, host countries, Palestinians in diasporas as well as political commentary on the refugee issue.
CONTENTS
1 NEW EVICTIONS Page 3
2 REFUGEES IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Page 4
3 UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) Page 4
4 LEBANON Page 5
5 INTERNATIONAL NEWS Page 6
6 COMMENTARY Page 7
INTRODUCTION
While there is much focus on the Israeli Palestinian conflict on a political level there is very little, if any, mention of the refugees and internally displaced Palestinians who comprise three quarters of the global Palestinian population. The 7.1 Million Palestinian refugees face a number of difficult challenges which require the attention of the international community.
For the past 62 years, millions of Palestinians have been living as refugees in areas of the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) and in surrounding host countries - mostly in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has described their plight as “by far the most protracted and largest of all refugee problems in the world today”
This bulletin provides an update on the condition of Palestinian refugees around the world over the past month. It covers stories from the Occupied Territories, internally displaced Palestinians in Israel, UNRWA, host countries, Palestinians in the Diaspora and commentaries relating to the refugees.
1 NEW EVICTIONS
Palestinians are continually evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem. Since its occupation in 1967 Israel has boosted its Jewish population to the great detriment of Palestinians. It is estimated that 180,000 or more Palestinians have been evicted from their homes.
1.1 Israeli High Court opens the way to more evictions in East Jerusalem
A Supreme Court ruling Sunday may allow settler groups to move into dozens more homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Justices Yoram Danziger, Esther Hayut and Miriam Naor unanimously rejected an appeal by Palestinians claiming to own a large plot in the western portion of the neighborhood. The court ruled that the custodian general, and other owners, including settler representatives, succeeded in proving they owned the property.
Read More:
http://jfjfp.com/?p=17775
1.2 Sheikh Jarrah Palestinians fear new eviction
Supreme Court ruling reverts more land to Jewish hands; right-wing activist: We can expect building now, after a decade.
Read more:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=189577
An Israeli Supreme Court ruling allows settler groups to move into dozens more homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Read More:
http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/profiles/blogs/dozens-of-arab-families-may-be?xg_source=activity
2 REFUGEES IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Refugees are the most vulnerable within the occupied territory. Three quarters of Gaza’s1.7 million, who are still under siege, are refugees, and in the West Bank a quarter of itspopulation are refugees
2.1 UN Report: Protection of Civilians Weekly Report | 15 - 21 September 2010
Area C and East Jerusalem demolitions resumed
After a respite that lasted more than 30 days, this week OCHA recorded the demolition of eight
structures in East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank. I
Read More:
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_protection_of_civilians_2010_09_24_english.pdf
3 UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency)
3.1 40,000 students turned away from UNRWA schools due to Gaza closure
Despite Israel's promise to ease the closure of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza school year opened this week with a severe shortage of classrooms. While for the first time in three years Israel has allowed the import of school supplies for government schools in Gaza, the almost absolute ban on the import of construction materials has left students with lots of pens and notebooks but without classrooms.
Read More:
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=797
3.2 West Bank refugee invents engine that runs on air.
A West Bank mechanic has harnessed the power of air with his invention of a new, greener motor engine that operates by air compression, without the need for fuel.
Read More:
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=806
3.3 UNRWA head makes plea to Arab League on behalf of Palestine refugees
The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Filippo Grandi, expressed thanks to the Arab States and the Arab League’s Secretariat for their continued support to UNRWA and for the Palestine refugees served by the Agency.
Read More:
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=798
3.4 Community organisations help deliver food to poorest during Ramadan
This Ramadan, UNRWA, through its partnership network of community-based organisations (CBOs) and supported by a number of generous donations, has been able to provide hot meals and fresh meat to the most vulnerable Palestine refugees in Gaza and the West Bank. Out of the total $1.9 million donated during the holy month, approximately $1.4 million of in-kind donations (fresh meat and hot meals) were distributed through CBOs.
Read More:
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=796
4 LEBANON
Lebanon's estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in appalling social and economic conditions - most of them in crowded camps that lack essential infrastructure. In 2001, Parliament passed a law prohibiting Palestinians from owning property, a right they had for decades. Lebanese law also restricts their ability to work in many areas. In 2005, Lebanon eliminated a ban on Palestinians holding most clerical and technical positions, provided they obtain a temporary work permit from the Labour Ministry, but more than 20 high-level professions remain off-limits to Palestinians.
4.4 Sabra-Shatila: 28 years on
Nearly 30 years after the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, untreated psychic wounds are still open and accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still being denied
Read more:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1016/fo1.htm
4.5 Palestinians in Lebanon Commemorate the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, Committed by Israeli-Led Phalangists
Hundreds of Palestinians, Lebanese and European activists commemorated on Friday the Sabra and Shatila massacre in which thousands of Palestinian refugees were murdered in cold blood by Israeli-led Phalangists, in Beirut, in 1982.
Read More:
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2010/September/18%20n/Palestinians%20in%20Lebanon%20Commemorate%
4.6 Sleiman reiterates refusal to settle Palestinian refugees in Lebanon President urges UN Assembly to prevent Israeli violations
BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman reiterated on Friday Lebanon’s refusal to settle Palestinian refugees on its territories, saying such a step undermined stability in the country.
Read More:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=119675#axzz10ubOiVmk
5. INTERNATIONAL NEWS
5.1 Former Israeli PM: U.S. was ready to take Palestinian refugees
Jerusalem (CNN) -- The United States under President George W. Bush was prepared to take in 100,000 Palestinian refugees as part of a Middle East peace deal, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday
Read More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/09/19/israel.olmert/index.html?eref=rss_latest
5.2 Brazil Donates $500,000 for Nahr el-Bared
BEIRUT, September 24, 2010 (WAFA)- Brazil has donated $ 500,000 to support relief and recovery activities for Nahr el-Bared displaced refugees for 2010/2011 through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Read More:
http://english.wafa.ps/?action=detail&id=14809
6. COMMENTARY
6.1 The Refugees are the crux of the matter.
The right of return is widely viewed as one of the main national constants of the Palestinian national movement and enjoys a wide consensus among all Palestinians, irrespective of their ideological orientation. It is considered by many as the essence and soul and heart of the Palestinian problem since the Palestinian cause is all about the extirpation of one people from its ancestral homeland in order to allow for the colonization and settlement of the land of Palestine by another people: the Zionist Jews.
In the final analysis, there can be no real peace without real justice for these refugees, dispersed around the world for more than sixty years, while their homes, land and property were arrogated by another people. In fact, this is the crux of the matter, since Israel, which can be described rather accurately as a grand project of dispossession (since the Zionist state could never have been created legally, they resorted to stealing and arrogating Palestine).
Read More:
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2010/09/refugees-are-crux-of-matter.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2F
6.2 More than 60 years after the establishment of Israel, there is no Arab-Israeli issue that remains as utterly divisive as the fate of Palestinian refugees.
In the course of Israel's creation in 1948 and its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, more than half the Arabs of pre-1948 Palestine are thought to have been displaced.Today there are millions of Palestinians living in exile from homes and land their families had inhabited for generations.
Read More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11104284
6.3 No Closure without Addressing the Nakba
Facts that cannot be denied regarding the Palestinian-Israeli issue: the conflict did not start in 1967; Arab Palestinians constituted seventy-five percent of the total population and owned around 94.2 % of the land in Palestine by the end of the Mandate in 1948; and majority of the Palestinians today are refugees scattered throughout the world.
When the UN stepped in to deal with the Palestinian refugees issue in 1949, Israel’s Western supporters in refused to involve the existing “International Refugee Organization” (IRO) that had been assisting Second World War European refugees, including Jews, to be repatriated as the first option to which refugees were entitled. Under pressure from the US, the UN created the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA), an organization that deals exclusively with the Palestinian refugees.
Read More:
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16291
Palestinian Return Centre
100H Crown House, North Circular Road
London NW10 7PN
Tel: +44 20 84530919
Fax: +44 20 84530994
website: www.prc.org.uk
email: info@prc.org.uk
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