Who are the Palestinians?
Palestinians are the world's largest refugee population. Many of those living in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank are now third and fourth generation refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes in 1948 when Israel was created, and again in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. They now live all over the world, but are mostly concentrated in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the West Bank and Gaza.
There are currently over 8 million Palestinian refugees worldwide. One-third of the 4.4 million Palestine refugees registered with UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) live in some 59 recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These camps are administered by UNRWA, with whom HOPING has a special affiliation Hoping for UNRWA. The other two-thirds of the registered refugees live in and around the cities and towns of their host countries, and in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, often in the environs of the official camps.
More than half of the refugees are children under 15 years old. Their parents and grandparents were born in these camps. At first families lived in tents: they did not plan to stay long, expecting to be able to return to their own homes, towns and villages. Today they are still living in these same refugee camps, waiting for a solution to the conflict, their lives on hold, caught in a terrible circumstance. The majority of Palestinian refugee children live difficult and harsh lives, facing the realities of continued Israeli occupation, the trauma of war, severe overcrowding, unemployment, and reliance upon international handouts.
Conscious of the fact that the majority of Palestinian refugees reside throughout the Middle East, HOPING supports activities and projects for Palestinian refugee children across the region. We aim to be inclusive of all Palestinian refugee children wherever they live, in the West Bank and Gaza as well as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and further afield
