The land area occupied by the 12 Palestinian
official refugee camps in Lebanon has remained mostly unchanged since 1948
despite the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon having swelled from
an estimated 100,000 in 1949 to over 400,000 at the present time.
Amnesty International remains concerned
about the limitations which continue to be imposed on the Palestinian refugee
community in Lebanon in order to restrict their exercise of human rights
and which discriminate against them on racial grounds.
These include restrictions that discriminate against Palestinians in relation to housing rights, the right to work, and right to education.
In many cases, Palestinian families interviewed by Amnesty International indicated that children dropped out of school as they believe that spending many years of education to finish school or university will be wasted as they will not be able to use such education to gain a living.
One of the refugees interviewed by Amnesty International has lived with his family in El-Maachouk -- an unregistered gathering in Tyre -- for 32 years where his family moved from Burj El-Shemali (Tyre) to a bigger house. He had left school in fourth grade to support his family when his father was detained during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He now lives in a small house close to his parents, with his wife and children. His parents' house has one room where the ceiling is made of corrugated metal while the other room has a ceiling made of bamboo sticks topped by mud. "To build bricks in the ceiling instead we need permission from the local authority; the local authority does not give permissions. We could go to the governorate but it does not give permissions either."
Facts
According to UNRWA There are: 400,582 Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA between 10,000 and 40,000 Palestinian refugees are not registered with UNRWA but registered with the Lebanese authorities 4,000 to 3,000 are not registered at all