Echoes of Displacement: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon Navigate Life and Loss

Israel war on Gaza has brought back so many traumatic memories for the thousands of stateless Palestinians living in poverty and unemployment in the cedars country

[Bourj el-Barajneh camp, Beirut] Many places in Lebanon feel as if they do not belong to the country. In these areas, life appears to be from another land. The narrow streets, portraits of political leaders and martyrs at every corner, and numerous Palestinian flags explain the absence of the Lebanese cedar flag. In the 12 Palestinian refugee camps scattered across Lebanon, people live as though they were in Palestine. Their lives mirror those of their brethren who have lived in refugee camps in the West Bank and across the Middle East for over 75 years.

Everything has changed since then, because at the end of the day we all are Palestinians

Since October 7, nothing in these camps has remained the same. “Everything has changed since then, because at the end of the day we all are Palestinians,” said Mohammad, an English teacher living at Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp, on the outskirts of Beirut. “Our brothers and sisters are dying every day,” he told The Media Line, referring to the Israeli war on Gaza that for almost six months has killed around 32,490 Palestinians.

For the majority of Palestinians in Lebanon, this Ramadan has been the most challenging in years. “Kids are asking their parents: ‘mom, how could I celebrate my sixth or seventh birthday while there are kids my age dying every day in Gaza? How could I go to school and see that kids my age don’t even have a house?”, Mohammad explained.

We are the third generation of refugees that have been for more than 70 years outside Palestine and we are making the fourth

His grandparents arrived in Lebanon in 1948 after being expelled from their land by Jewish militias during Israel’s war of independence. “We are the third generation of refugees that have been for more than 70 years outside Palestine and we are making the fourth, who also maintains this strong link with our Palestinian issue,” Mohammad said proudly.

Spread across these dozen camps, 489,292 Palestinian refugees remain stateless, according to the most recent registration last March by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Despite having been in the country for more than seven decades, Palestinian refugees have never obtained Lebanese nationality. To avoid altering the sectarian mix of the cedars state, Palestinians have lived as foreigners and, therefore, stateless for almost 76 years.

“Our options are either to leave the country or be refugees forever,” said Nada, who is also a Palestinian refugee but doesn’t live in the camp. Lebanese authorities bar Palestinians from owning property, engaging in specific “high-skilled” professions, and accessing healthcare, education, and additional social services. To get these minimum services, they depend entirely on UNRWA. About 80% of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty, according to the UN agency.

Nada has not been the same since the onset of the war. “The first two months I was totally depressed, I couldn’t sleep or eat or concentrate, I spent the day crying,” she told The Media Line, reflecting a feeling shared by everyone around her. There are thousands like her. “Since that day, everything we do here, when we eat, when we work, we do it here but our head is there,” in Gaza, Nada said.

For many Palestinians in Lebanon, this war is their own Nakba. This Arabic word refers to the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their lands during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Among them were Mohammad and Nada’s grandparents. “We are living the second Nakba, but it is the first one we see with our own eyes,” said Mohammad. “For our elderly, they are just reliving their memories over and over again,” he added.

Palestinian refugees have previously witnessed and been central figures in scenes of widespread destruction, forced displacement, and thousands of fatalities and injuries as the ones taking place in Gaza for the past 174 days. “There is nothing we can do [to stop the war in Gaza] and that causes us a lot of frustration,” said Nada.

“We ourselves as adults can’t stand it; we even start crying while browsing TikTok or Instagram,” Mohammad acknowledged. This summer, after clashes between Palestinian groups in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, in the south of Lebanon, UNRWA already denounced that recurrent displacements, the destruction of the camps, and the effects of generational trauma have left the Palestinian population of Lebanon “deeply exhausted and antagonized.”

Currently, Palestinians in Lebanon commit themselves to boycott actions against the State of Israel as the only alternative available to them to help stop the slaughter of their fellow human beings. “Gaza is teaching humanity and mercy to the world,” Mohammad highlighted. In recent weeks, Samira confessed to realizing how satisfied she is with her life as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon. Every time she eats, her mind travels to Gaza and she becomes extremely thankful for the life she has. “Especially for having my family around and feeling safe,” she said.

For an outsider, a walk around Burj el Barajneh camp might feel akin to being in Palestine. But it is not. The chaotic constructions in the camp, which often defy the laws of gravity for pure survival, show the level of overcrowding in which thousands of Palestinians are forced to live in a single square kilometer. Poverty and lack of employment are present on every corner.

Unfortunately we do not belong to Lebanon because you do not belong to a place where you cannot work freely, where you cannot come and go freely, where you cannot express yourself freely

“Unfortunately we do not belong to Lebanon because you do not belong to a place where you cannot work freely, where you cannot come and go freely, where you cannot express yourself freely, so in reality we belong to the camps and to Palestine,” Mohammad acknowledged. “This is our greatest dream: to visit, to see, to touch, to feel, even to taste Palestine,” this grandson of Palestinian refugees concluded.