Refugees
Historical Events
Palestinians have experienced several periods of major displacement, beginning in 1947-48 during the first Arab-Zionist/Israeli war, followed by a second major displacement in the 1967 War, the 1991 Gulf War when some 350,000 Palestinians were displaced from Kuwait and again as recently as 2003, when Palestinians were evicted from Baghdad. Additional displacement has resulted from Israeli government policies and practices inside Israel and in the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories, including land confiscation, house demolition, revocation of residency status, and deportation, as well as government policies and armed conflict in various countries of asylum in the region.
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| Baqaa refugee camp (Photo: UNRWA) |
Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe (1948) -- Every year Palestinians commemorate the Nakba ("the catastrophe"): the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. In 1948 more than 60 percent of the total Palestinian population was expelled. More than 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed. To date, Israel has prevented the return of approximately 6 million Palestinian refugees, who have either been expelled or displaced. Approximately 250,000 internally displaced Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel are prevented from returning to their homes and villages.
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| Sabra and Shatila - file photo (REUTERS/Ali Jarekji) |
The Sabra and Shatila Massacres (16-18 September 1982) -- On 11 September 1982, Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, announced that "2,000 terrorists" had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of Israeli-allied Phalangist militia leader and Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, "encircling and sealing" the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. By mid-day on 15 September 1982, the refugee camps were entirely surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who installed checkpoints at strategic locations and crossroads around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening of that day, the camps were shelled. Around mid-day on Thursday 16 September 1982, a unit of approximately 150 Israeli-allied Phalangists entered the first camp. For the next 40 hours members of the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.
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