On the margins of this refugee presence we also find the quasi-surreal issue of Palestinian refugees from Syria, who have become refugees once again, this time in Lebanon. They bring with them their accumulated memories of injustice, stretching back to the Nakba of 1948, only to encounter here an injustice that is even greater.
Palestinian refugees in Syria began arriving in Lebanon at the end of 2012, when the battle for Yarmouk broke out in the Syrian capital. Their numbers gradually rose to 80,000 during the first months of 2013, and then fell, gradually, to reach approximately 44,000 by the end of last year, according to UNRWA. More than half of them came from Yarmouk and most of them sought refuge in Sidon and elsewhere in south Lebanon; the rest are distributed among Beirut, Tyre, the Bekaa Valley and north Lebanon, where there are already-existing Palestinian refugee camps.
The measures taken by Lebanon’s General Security are the biggest reason for this decline, which began in the second quarter of 2014. In fact, a number of decisions were taken, and then withdrawn. Most importantly, international aviation companies were asked to not bring any Palestinian refugee (who is a resident of Syria) to Lebanon from any country in the world, irrespective of the documents he or she was carrying. Then, General Security banned the entry of Palestinians from Syria into Lebanon, cracked down on the renewal of residency permits for those already here, and reduced the period of this residency. In the end, the authorities required a prior visa (under impossible conditions). These measures weren’t all written; some were communicated verbally to Palestinians at border crossings, and in the absence of any official documents. This led to the separation of a number of families between Lebanon and Syria; it prompted a number of these refugees to try and flee by boat to Europe, with all of the danger that this entailed.
Also, General Security returned a number of Palestinians to Syria by force despite the danger to their lives, and this policy led to a range of difficult humanitarian cases. For example, some women were allowed to enter, but without their children, because they were Syrian nationals. As for the children, they are Palestinian refugees in Syria because their fathers are Syrian. Also, the parents of a deceased refugee, Abu Ali Ramadan, were prevented from receiving his body and burying him, until several Palestinian factions intervened to allow one of his sons to secure this permission.
At first, those arriving from Syria stayed with their relatives in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps but when their numbers began to rise, some were prompted to rent homes or garage spaces in the camps. Rents ranged from $200 to $700 a month, depending on size. Some charitable associations established refugee reception centers, despite the high population density there. UNRWA took responsibility for Palestinians arriving from Syria, and not the UNHCR, as in the case of Syrian nationals.
Initially, UNRWA paid $100 to each family as a monthly housing allowance in addition to a $30 food allowance. But in September 2014, UNRWA informed 1,110 out of 12,000 families that the assistance would be halted after it set down a number of “civil criteria.” The agency later accepted an appeal that was lodged by some of the families.
UNRWA dealt with the refugees arriving from Syria like Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in terms of health services. It covers part of the bill, particularly with primary care, and pays part of the cost of some operations.
Refugees from Syria encountered another problem: the high cost of medicine compared to Syria, especially because most of them didn’t have jobs.
UNRWA schools took in students arriving from Syria but they encountered a considerable problem, namely the difference in the curriculum, and particularly the foreign language component, as they depended highly on Arabic-language instruction in Syria. This prompted UNRWA to open additional, afternoon courses for Syrian Palestinians for two school years, then incorporated the students into half of its schools (7 out of 14) during the current academic year.