About 800 refugee camp residents were killed in the Sabra and Shatila massacre [Reuters]
".....However, of all the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world, it is those who have taken shelter in Lebanon who have suffered the most.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) the international body set up to ensure the welfare of Palestinian refugees, the highest percentage of Palestinian refugees who are living in abject poverty reside in Lebanon......
While those Palestinians resident in Syria and Jordan, for example, do not enjoy the benefits of full citizenship, they do have access to education, healthcare and employment.
Conversely, Lebanon stands accused of not being the gracious host to the Palestinians that Arab tradition dictates.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Palestinian refugee camps were under stringent Lebanese security control. For instance, travel from one camp to another was restricted and even reading newspapers in public was banned.
Today, Palestinians in Lebanon continue to suffer from draconian measures which the Lebanese state claims are there to prevent them from becoming permanent guests.....
Walk into Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ain al-Helweh, at midday and you are struck by the number of school age children in the streets, many going to and from their UNRWA schools as they cannot attend state schools.
Palestinians in Lebanon are also banned from seeking state healthcare, owning property and even bringing in building materials into the refugee camps.
However, the future of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be among the first items on the agenda of Lebanon's new parliament.
The Sabra Shatila Foundation, after consultation with human rights organisations including International Lawyers Sans Frontieres and members of Lebanon's legislature, will table a draft law in parliament which promises, in the words of the foundation, to: "erase, in one vote, decades of illegal and immoral treatment of more than 10 per cent of Lebanon's population".
The draft text reads: "Be it enacted by the Chamber of Deputies ... that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon shall immediately acquire, receive and enjoy the full faith and credit of all civil rights possessed by Lebanese citizens except citizenship or naturalisation.""
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