Along the seven million Palestinian refugees who are scattered in multiple host countries around the world today, Palestine, and more specifically the West Bank and Gaza, hold an abundance of Palestinian refugees as well. However, how is it then, that a citizen becomes a refugee in his home country?
UNHCR defines a refugee as a person who has unwillingly traveled across borders to seek refuge from persecution. The closest explanation of the UNHCR’s distinct definition of “Palestine Refugees,” a term used to describe individuals whose initial place of residence was in Palestine between 1946 and 1948. The latter then proceeded to lose their residence due to occupying Palestine in 1948. Moreover, 1.5 million individuals qualify as Palestine Refugees live in the Levant and a smaller percentage of them live in the refugee camps Gaza and the West Bank. Thus, this notion renders the definition as not entirely nuanced.
There are a total of 27 refugee camps in Palestine: 19 in the West Bank, which is home to 871,000 refugees, and 8 in Gaza which houses more than half of Gaza's total population. The most giant camp in Palestine is located in the Gaza strip is 1.4 square kilometers large. The conditions of these camps are dire. Most of these camps are overly populated, have contaminated water sources, lack basic infrastructures like roads or sewers, and have increased poverty rates. According to The Borgen Project, people living as refugees in Gaza survive with under $3.60 per day, an amount which is hardly enough for food, shelter, and clothing.
To further elaborate, the reason behind this dramatic increase in poverty rates in Palestine goes back to the Israeli occupation. For example, the joint efforts of the Israeli blockade on land, air, and sea since 2007, and the United States’ $300 million budget cut for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2018 have largely impacted the Palestinian economy.
Unlike other refugees who are oceans apart from their ancestral lands, refugees living in Palestine have very little distance between the camps they’re in and their previous homes. Eventually, the average Palestinian is condemned to a life where his greatest dream is to one day return home, meanwhile, the average Israeli settler lives comfortably inside said homes without a second thought.