On World Refugee Day: 6.2 Million Palestinian Refugees Spread Across 58 Camps

SadaNews - Ahmad Abu Holi, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the Department of Refugee Affairs, stated that refugees represent 42% of the population of the State of Palestine, while the number of registered refugees with UNRWA is approximately 6.2 million, spread across 58 official camps.

Abu Holi added, in a press statement released today, Saturday, on the occasion of World Refugee Day, that more than 171,000 martyrs have risen since the Nakba of 1948, among them 74,176 martyrs since October 7, 2023, distributed between 72,996 martyrs in the Gaza Strip and 1,180 martyrs in the West Bank, with 11,000 missing under the rubble, noting that the number of Palestinians worldwide has reached about 15.5 million.

He affirmed that the Palestinian refugee issue represents the longest and most profound humanitarian and rights issue in modern history, indicating that our people enter a new year of systematic injustice amidst the continued genocide.

Abu Holi added that the current situation has surpassed the boundaries of traditional humanitarian disasters, especially in light of the direct and systematic targeting of the Palestinian existence and its infrastructure and social structure in all refugee camps and places of diaspora.

He pointed out that the refugee camps in Gaza and the northern West Bank are facing unprecedented destruction and a devastating genocide; as our people in the sector are subjected to mass killings and a total siege that has led to repeated forced displacement affecting about 1.9 million Palestinians, while the northern West Bank camps (Jenin, Tulkarm, Nour Shams, and Balata) are witnessing a military aggression extending for more than a year that has resulted in complete destruction of infrastructure, water networks, and homes, leading to the displacement of more than 40,000 refugees from those camps, in a clear Israeli attempt to undermine the symbolism of the camp as a living witness to the right of return.

Regarding the catastrophic internal displacement map in Gaza, he explained that about one million people are currently concentrated in 862 scattered and random displacement sites; with Khan Younis governorate hosting the largest block of about 391,000 displaced individuals in 214 locations, followed by Deir al-Balah in the central governorate with about 96,000 displaced individuals in 94 sites, then Gaza and the north with 25,000 displaced families in temporary and destroyed facilities, while the block in Rafah is limited to 500 displaced families in besieged and isolated areas.

He continued that the living environment in the camps and displacement sites has turned into a real danger zone due to the occupation's deliberate destruction of 90% of water and sewage networks, which has caused a frightening spread of epidemics and skin diseases and hepatitis, alongside a severe famine and continuous assaults that have forced 90% of the displaced to rely entirely on the reduced aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Abu Holi warned of the current existential challenges facing both the refugees and the agency together; due to the direct Israeli targeting of UNRWA's legal legitimacy and attempts to ban its work completely, bombarding its official headquarters and schools that shelter the displaced, and international political pressure to dry up its funding sources, aiming to end its international mandate granted under UN Resolution 302 to liquidate the refugee issue and terminate international witnessing to it.

Abu Holi called on the international community, United Nations institutions, and global active forces to intervene immediately and earnestly to lift this historical injustice imposed on the Palestinian people and to achieve the justice that has been absent for 78 years of ongoing displacement and Nakba and to support UNRWA financially and politically to continue its life-saving services to millions of Palestinian refugees, affirming that stability and security in the region will not be achieved without an immediate end to the genocide, the ending of the occupation, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty and its capital in Jerusalem, while ensuring the application of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were displaced and compensation according to UN Resolution 194.