Dubai Telegraph - Young Palestinians in Lebanon dream of a future abroad

EUR -
AED 3.862042
AFN 71.804229
ALL 98.797466
AMD 410.848078
ANG 1.899611
AOA 958.940084
ARS 1058.238507
AUD 1.620225
AWG 1.892645
AZN 1.789395
BAM 1.967098
BBD 2.128123
BDT 125.953443
BGN 1.956332
BHD 0.396362
BIF 3113.654377
BMD 1.051469
BND 1.420345
BOB 7.309987
BRL 6.106303
BSD 1.054054
BTN 88.858242
BWP 14.398702
BYN 3.449312
BYR 20608.799376
BZD 2.124603
CAD 1.482114
CDF 3017.717361
CHF 0.931823
CLF 0.037163
CLP 1025.434617
CNY 7.631781
CNH 7.633625
COP 4610.430258
CRC 537.123794
CUC 1.051469
CUP 27.863938
CVE 110.899869
CZK 25.280471
DJF 187.688029
DKK 7.458945
DOP 63.517579
DZD 140.586407
EGP 52.170119
ERN 15.77204
ETB 131.427132
FJD 2.391409
FKP 0.829943
GBP 0.835835
GEL 2.870265
GGP 0.829943
GHS 16.600348
GIP 0.829943
GMD 74.654183
GNF 9083.084398
GTQ 8.138513
GYD 220.516588
HKD 8.183129
HNL 26.634729
HRK 7.500403
HTG 138.343291
HUF 410.963645
IDR 16706.744023
ILS 3.829478
IMP 0.829943
INR 88.660528
IQD 1380.730543
IRR 44253.716178
ISK 145.081723
JEP 0.829943
JMD 167.279216
JOD 0.745807
JPY 161.530937
KES 136.168674
KGS 91.27086
KHR 4230.257223
KMF 493.08668
KPW 946.322022
KRW 1469.239507
KWD 0.323541
KYD 0.878345
KZT 526.313
LAK 23147.955604
LBP 94386.027846
LKR 306.711669
LRD 189.714255
LSL 19.056857
LTL 3.104715
LVL 0.636023
LYD 5.15863
MAD 10.589624
MDL 19.267668
MGA 4925.289533
MKD 61.559552
MMK 3415.131453
MNT 3572.892815
MOP 8.446615
MRU 41.912953
MUR 49.755948
MVR 16.245234
MWK 1827.697802
MXN 21.562203
MYR 4.686928
MZN 67.1904
NAD 19.056857
NGN 1769.759472
NIO 38.782387
NOK 11.685421
NPR 142.17627
NZD 1.797046
OMR 0.404805
PAB 1.054054
PEN 3.992029
PGK 4.245903
PHP 62.029854
PKR 292.749574
PLN 4.308154
PYG 8212.168477
QAR 3.845012
RON 4.976502
RSD 117.004332
RUB 110.908439
RWF 1439.152416
SAR 3.949844
SBD 8.822449
SCR 14.320848
SDG 632.459485
SEK 11.526107
SGD 1.415456
SHP 0.829943
SLE 23.868157
SLL 22048.791639
SOS 602.35403
SRD 37.320818
STD 21763.29276
SVC 9.222974
SYP 2641.848152
SZL 19.051426
THB 36.453918
TJS 11.235312
TMT 3.690657
TND 3.343207
TOP 2.462647
TRY 36.425338
TTD 7.15912
TWD 34.112826
TZS 2781.137122
UAH 43.741741
UGX 3905.431745
USD 1.051469
UYU 44.926765
UZS 13521.66479
VES 48.905782
VND 26723.093681
VUV 124.832555
WST 2.935272
XAF 659.740094
XAG 0.034439
XAU 0.0004
XCD 2.841648
XDR 0.806231
XOF 659.746405
XPF 119.331742
YER 262.78845
ZAR 19.031706
ZMK 9464.475804
ZMW 29.063935
ZWL 338.572704
  • RBGPF

    0.8100

    61

    +1.33%

  • CMSC

    -0.0300

    24.7

    -0.12%

  • BTI

    0.2700

    37.6

    +0.72%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1100

    6.66

    -1.65%

  • NGG

    -0.3400

    62.92

    -0.54%

  • GSK

    -0.1610

    33.989

    -0.47%

  • VOD

    0.0200

    8.93

    +0.22%

  • RELX

    0.2400

    46.81

    +0.51%

  • RIO

    -0.7800

    62.2

    -1.25%

  • AZN

    -0.3800

    66.02

    -0.58%

  • SCS

    -0.1700

    13.55

    -1.25%

  • BCC

    -3.6450

    148.855

    -2.45%

  • BCE

    -0.1550

    26.865

    -0.58%

  • JRI

    -0.0800

    13.29

    -0.6%

  • CMSD

    -0.1160

    24.464

    -0.47%

  • BP

    -0.3400

    28.98

    -1.17%

Young Palestinians in Lebanon dream of a future abroad
Young Palestinians in Lebanon dream of a future abroad / Photo: ANWAR AMRO - afp/AFP

Young Palestinians in Lebanon dream of a future abroad

In Lebanon's impoverished Palestinian refugee camps, young people say they dream of leaving a struggling country where their families took refuge generations ago and where their futures remain bleak.

Text size:

Nirmeen Hazineh is a descendant of survivors of what Palestinians call the Nakba -- the "catastrophe" -- when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

She proudly considers herself from Jaffa -- now south of Tel Aviv -- and talks as if she has lived there all her life, instead of in the ramshackle Shatila refugee camp south of Beirut.

"Emigration has become the main solution for young people," said Hazineh, 25.

"Whoever you speak to, they'll tell you 'I want to leave', whether legally or illegally, it doesn't matter."

Lebanon has been grappling with a devastating economic crisis since late 2019.

Most of the population is now in poverty, according to the United Nations, and many Lebanese have quit the country for better prospects abroad.

Hazineh is a sociology graduate but is not allowed to practise in her field, as Lebanon bars Palestinians from working in 39 professions, including as doctors, lawyers and engineers.

Instead she helps to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs, which add to the daily misery of Shatila.

"There is a kind of despair among young people in the camp," said Hazineh, who despite the difficulties maintains a radiant smile.

She said she wanted to live "in a country that respects me, that gives me a chance, a job".

- Camp horrors -

Tiny Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, while almost double that number are registered for the organisation's services.

Most Palestinians, including more than 30,000 who fled the war in neighbouring Syria after 2011, live in one of Lebanon's 12 official camps, now bustling but impoverished urban districts.

Shatila is a warren of tumbledown homes where tangled electricity cables criss-cross tight alleyways.

Once a stronghold of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation, Shatila became synonymous with horror in September 1982, when Christian militiamen allied with Israel massacred between 800 and 2,000 Palestinians there and in the adjoining Sabra camp.

The PLO moved to Tunis that year, and later in the 1980s, pro-Syrian militias waged war on the Palestinian leader's remaining supporters in the camps.

Portraits of Arafat still line the streets, along with Palestinian flags and posters of militants killed in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Walid Othman, 33, says he spends his spare time in political activism with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is banned in Israel.

His grandparents fled the village of Nahf, in the Acre region, 75 years ago. His parents were then driven from Lebanon's Tal al-Zaatar refugee camp, which Christian militiamen razed early in the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

Othman said he would have liked to study political science and dedicate his life to "defending the Palestinian cause on an international level".

But he had to stop his studies because of "the difficult economic situation" and instead became a blacksmith.

- 'No prospects' -

In Lebanon, Palestinians' "denied right to own property... further complicates employment and income generation activities", said Dorothee Klaus, director of UNRWA affairs for Lebanon.

Lebanon says restrictions on Palestinians are justified by their right to return to their country.

In neighbouring Syria, some 400,000 Palestinians are registered with UNRWA, where they have access to the job market.

In Jordan, more than half of the around 10 million population is of Palestinian origin, while some 2.3 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA but have the same rights as Jordanians.

"With no prospect of meaningful future", Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have "attempted to migrate whenever possible", Klaus said.

But their travel documents "may not be recognised", and they may be "required to file visas related to stateless persons", she added.

Mohammad Abdel Hafiz, whose family also hails from near Acre, lamented that Palestinians in Lebanon "don't even enjoy the most basic rights".

"Everybody is born in a country, while we are born where our heart is," said the 29-year-old, who volunteers for the Palestinian civil defence in Shatila.

As he zips through its alleys on his moped, he dreams of leaving, but his chances of getting a visa to a Western country are slim.

And he is haunted by the memory of three young camp residents who drowned when a boat carrying would-be migrants sank off the Lebanese coast last year.

"They died because they wanted to have a future," Abdel Hafiz said.

"Here, our aim is just to survive."

C.Akbar--DT