• Palestinian refugees in Lebanon under precarious situation by Amineh Ishtay

After more than half a century in exile their situation remains precarious. They don’t have
citizenship. They can’t work in many occupations. They are prohibited by law from working in more than 70 trades and professions. In some cases they can’t even repair their houses because they can’t import building material into the camps.

Restrictions on building and reconstruction in the camps contribute to the insecurity of
Palestinians in Lebanon, forcing them to live in building semi- or totally destroyed during
the civil war, inasmuch as rebuilding has been strictly and legally controlled.

We have to mention that Palestinians living in other countries such as Jordan or Syria are
not so marginalized. In Jordan the Palestinians constitute 60 per cent of the total population and 95 per cent of them hold the Jordanian citizenship.

The Lebanese policy doesn’t allow the Palestinian refugees have a citizenship or residency
rights because the Lebanese government wants to keep the pressure on Israel to permit
the refugees’ return.
Basic Lebanese labor law says that non-Lebanese must obtain work permits for all regular
jobs: construction, sanitation, and agriculture. A second law restricts the practice of most professions-medicine, engineering, and pharmacy- to Lebanese, forcing Palestinians to
take jobs that offer low wages, insecurity, and no benefits.

Only a small fraction of Palestinians have acquired Lebanese citizenship, with a mere
3,000 naturalized until the 1980s.
On the other hand, the Palestinian refugees face problems accessing a Lebanese health
system dominated by the private sector with high tech/high cost hospitals. For the
Palestinians their situation gets worst because the unemployment rates estimated at
anywhere between 40 per cent and 70 per cent. Many of the Palestinian refugees living in
the 12 camps present diseases as hepatitis, typhoid, measles, cardiovascular diseases,
diabetes, hypertension, renal failure, epilepsy, cancer, anemia…The refugees in their
majority look to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) as the principal providers of health care.

Another problem that Palestinians are facing in Lebanon is the educational facilities. While
the UNRWA provides Palestinians in Lebanon with primary education, they find it
extremely difficult to university, and they continue to be excluded from public institutions for higher education. The resulting lack of education has jeopardized the economic
independence and productivity of Palestinians. UNRWA schools are the only existing
educational option, except for a minority of Palestinian families who can provide their
children with expensive education in Lebanese private schools. UNRWA’s budget crisis
has brought primary education in the refugee camps to the verge of collapse. As part of its
austerity measures, the class room/pupils ratio in UNRWA schools was raised to 60
children per class, all children enrolled in pre-school grade in 1998 skipped first grade in
1999 per administrative decree and are currently studying the curriculum of the second
grade. Teachers, hired on short-term contracts only, are under qualified and unable to
cope with the heavy workload. The students, half of whom never acquire minimum
qualifications, are moved on to the next grade, until many of them decide to leave school
for lack of incentives. Child labor among 10 – 17 year old Palestinians in Lebanon is
estimated at some 12%.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Total registered refugees - 382,973
• Registered camp population - 214,728
• Official camps - 12
• Elementary and preparatory schools - 71
• Secondary schools - 5
• Enrolled pupils (2000/2001) - 41,930
• Primary health care facilities - 25
• Refugees registered as special hardship cases - 42,448
• Number of UNRWA Field Office Area staff posts - 2,629