Camps are set up by the

United Nations Relief and Works Agency The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 P ...

(UNRWA) in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

to accommodate

Palestinian refugee Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodus ...

s registered with UNRWA, who fled or were expelled during the

1948 Palestinian exodus In 1948 more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossessio ...

after the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

or in the aftermath of the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Jun ...

in 1967, and their patrilineal descendants. There are 68 Palestinian refugee camps, 58 official and 10 unofficial,UNRWA Annual Operational report 2019 for the Reporting period 01 January – 31 December 2019
pages 168-169, "Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Statistics" ten of which were established after the Six-Day War while the others were established in 1948 to 1950s. Whilst only a third of registered Palestinian refugees live within the boundaries of the refugee camps, Palestinian refugees "show extraordinary social and economic integration outside the camps and informal gatherings". Many Palestinian refugees live in adjacent or nearby "gatherings", defined as "the geographic area, outside the official camps, which is home to a minimum 15 Palestinian households." The total number of registered Palestine refugees has grown from 750,000 in 1950 to around 5 million in 2013.

Definition of Palestinian refugee

UNRWA's mandate is to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees, including access to its refugee camps. For this purpose, it defines Palestinian refugees as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict." UNRWA also extends assistance to the patrilineal descendants of such refugees, as well as their legally adopted children.

Role of UNRWA

For a camp to be recognized by UNRWA, there must be an agreement between the host government and UNRWA governing use of the camp. UNRWA does not itself run any camps, has no police powers or administrative role, but simply provides services to the camp. UNRWA recognizes facilities in 58 designated

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...

s in

, the

and the

, and it also provides facilities in other areas where large numbers of registered Palestine refugees live outside of recognized camps. UNRWA also provided relief to Jewish

displaced persons Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, ...

inside

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for them in 1952. Refugee camps developed from tented cities to rows of concrete blockhouses to urban ghettos indistinguishable from their surroundings (effectively becoming urban developments within existing cities or by themselves), that house around one third of all registered Palestine refugees. The funding for UNRWA activities comes almost entirely from voluntary contributions from UN member states. UNRWA also receives some funding from the Regular Budget of the United Nations, which is used mostly for international staffing costs.

List of camps

The camps are divided between five regions: * Gaza Strip: The

has eight official and no unofficial refugee camps, and 1,221,110 registered refugees. * West Bank: The

has 19 official and four unofficial refugee camps, and 741,409 registered refugees. * Syria:

has nine official refugee camps and three unofficial refugee camps, and 499,189 registered refugees. * Lebanon: There are 12 official refugee and no unofficial camps in

, and 448,599 registered refugees. * Jordan: There are 10 official and three unofficial refugee camps in

, and 2,034,641 registered refugees.

Population statistics

The evolution of Palestinian refugee population is shown below:Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, 1 July 2003-30 June 2004, Supplement No. 13 (A/59/13)
Table 2: Distribution of registered population (as at 30 June 2004)Ḥanafī, Sār�
“Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Arab East: Governmentalities in Search of Legitimacy.”
(2010), page 6 The number of Palestinian refugees living within the UNWRA registered area of operations is shown below, both those living in camps and those living outside camps:Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, 1 July 2003-30 June 2004, Supplement No. 13 (A/59/13)
Table 3: Number and distribution of special hardship cases (as at 30 June 2004) The table below shows the population of registered refugees, other registered people, and refugees residing in camps, in 2018. UNRWA's definition of Other Registered Persons refer to "those who, at the time of original registration did not satisfy all of UNRWA's Palestine refugee criteria, but who were determined to have suffered significant loss and/or hardship for reasons related to the 1948 conflict in Palestine; they also include persons who belong to the families of other registered persons."Annual Operational Report 2019
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Bibliography

References

External links

Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

Palestinian Refugees in Syria

Palestinian Refugees in Jordan

As rebuilding begins at Lebanon's nahr al bared, displaced refugees are eager to return
William Wheeler and Don Duncan, ''World Politics Review,'' 11 March 2008
UN refugee agency unveils Palestinian archive

Maps

Fields of operation, 2014 map by UNRWA

Camps in Lebanon

Camps in the Palestinian territories
{{Nakbaend * Forced migration Statelessness Temporary populated places