Focus On: Palestinian Refugees

This collection of some of the most compelling pieces Al-Shabaka has published contextualizes and discusses the unique difficulties of Palestinian refugees displaced across the Middle East – from becoming refugees a second or third time due to the ongoing Syrian civil war to over-researching camps “famous” for tragedy while under-researching other refugee situations and exile communities.

Facing Double Discrimination

Palestinian Refugees from Syria: Stranded on the Margins of Law

By Mai Abu Moghli, Nael Bitarie, and Nell Gabiam

Al-Shabaka Policy Analysts Mai Abu Moghli, Nael Bitarie, and Nell Gabiam analyze the effects of the war in Syria on Palestinian refugees through a succinct, country by country analysis of the legal and social obstacles they face beyond those faced by other refugee communities, and identify immediate steps that local and international communities should take to address their safety and human rights. Read more…

Palestinians on the Road to Damascus

By Ahmad Diab

Ahmad Diab, in this Al-Shabaka Commentary, focuses on the fate of the besieged Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Yarmuk to illustrate the predicament of Palestinian refugees caught up in the Syrian Nakba. Never allowed to be fully Palestinian or fully Syrian, they are, like the rest of the Syrian people, forced to make harsh political choices to survive, their fate as murky as the fate of Syria itself. Read more…

The Price of Statelessness: Palestinian Refugees from Syria

By Rosemary Sayigh

In this Commentary, Rosemary Sayigh explores how the way neighboring Arab states differentiate between Syrian and Palestinian refugees mirrors a differentiation at the level of the United Nations. She notes, for instance, that while donations have flooded in for displaced Syrians fleeing the civil war, the donations needed to aid the Palestinian refugees of Syria are lacking due to intertwined levels of discrimination. Read more…

Unwelcome and Invisible

Unwelcome Guests: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

By Dalal Yassine

In this Policy Brief, Dalal Yassine examines the legal status of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and argues that the country’s institutional racism not only deprives Palestinian refugees of their human rights but also serves to undermine the right of return. Read more…

The Invisible Community: Egypt’s Palestinians

By Oroub el-Abed

Oroub El-Abed examines the legal status of Palestinians in Egypt, including positive signs of change in the wake of the Egyptian revolution. Read more…

Trapped by Denial of Rights, Illusion of Statehood: The Case of the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

By Jaber Suleiman

Jaber Suleiman explores the bid by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority to join the United Nations as a member state, complicating the already precarious status of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. This Policy Brief addresses the way in which Palestinian refugees are facing the double-edged challenge of denial of their rights and the illusion of statehood. Read more…

The Mechanics of Dispossession

Decades of Displacing Palestinians: How Israel Does It

By Munir Nuseibah

Al-Shabaka Policy Analyst Munir Nuseibah identifies six of the methods Israel uses to displace Palestinians, and discusses two: displacement by personal status engineering, and by urban planning. He calls on human rights advocates and organizations to apply the more recently developed transitional justice approach to deal with the mass human rights violations carried out as a matter of policy. Read more…

Refugees: Israeli Apartheid’s Unseen Dimension

By Hazem Jamjoum

Hazem Jamjoum explains in this Commentary how the Israeli denial of the Palestinian right to return is a cornerstone of Israel’s colonial-apartheid project, and how there can never be a durable peace without the implementation of this right. Read more…

External Actors

Uneasy but Necessary: The UNRWA-Palestinian Relationship

By Randa Farah

Randa Farah’s Policy Brief explores the United Nations Relief and Works Agency-refugee relationship. Farah argues that UNRWA took on an exaggerated role that mirrored that of a welfare government-in-exile and that it is a unique organization, but neither static, homogenous, nor apolitical. Read more…

Bartering Palestine for Research

By Mayssun Succarie

This Commentary by Mayssun Succarie discusses “research tourism:” the practice of over-researching Palestinian camps with a higher tragedy profile (such as Shatila), as opposed to others that have still faced tragedy but aren’t as famous for it (such as Burj al-Barajneh, 15 minutes away from Shatila). Read more…

Rosemary Sayigh is the author of Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (1979); Too Many Enemies: the Palestinian Experience in Lebanon (1994); Voices: Palestinian Women Narrate...
Randa Farah is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario, Anthropology Department. Dr. Farah has written on Palestinian popular memory and reconstructions of...
Oroub El-Abed is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Centre for British Research in the Levant (British Academy grant). She holds a PhD in Development...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Nael Bitarie is a Palestinian Syrian. Since 2004, Nael has been working with refugees from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and refugees in...
Nell Gabiam is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Political Science at Iowa State University. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology in 2008 from the University of...
Munir Nuseibah is a human rights lawyer and academic based in Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, Palestine. He is an assistant professor at Al-Quds University's faculty...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Mayssun Succarie is a postdoctoral scholar in the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University. Her research covers the Political Culture of Development...
Mai Abu Moghli is senior researcher and Co-Principle Investigator in the Education in Emergencies Program at the Centre for Lebanese Studies. She received a PhD...
Jaber Suleiman is an independent researcher/consultant in Refugee Studies. Since 2011, he has been working as a consultant and coordinator for the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Hazem Jamjoum is a graduate student in Modern Middle East History at New York University. His writing has focused on political-economy approaches to...
Dalal Yassine is a lawyer and advocate for gender and human rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Dalal has previously worked with several Palestinian NGOs...
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Ahmad Diab is a Palestinian writer and Fulbright scholar. He is currently working on his PhD at New York University. His interests...
(2017, May 13)

Latest Analysis

 Politics
The erasure of Indigenous populations lies at the core of settler-colonial narratives. These narratives aim to deny existing geographies, communities, and histories to justify the displacement and replacement of one people by another. The Zionist project is no exception. Among Zionism’s founding myths is the claim that it “made the desert bloom” and that Tel Aviv, its crown jewel, arose from barren sand dunes—an uninhabitable void transformed by pioneering settlers. This framing obscures the fact that the colonial regime initially built Tel Aviv on the outskirts of Yaffa (Jaffa), a thriving Palestinian city with a rich cultural life and a booming orange trade. The “dunes” description projects emptiness and conceals the vibrant agricultural and social life that flourished in the area. By casting the land as uninhabitable until redeemed by settlers, this narrative helped justify dispossession and colonial expansion. This process intensified after 1948, when Tel Aviv absorbed the lands of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, including al-Sumayil, Salame, Shaykh Muwannis, and Abu Kabir, and ultimately extended into the city of Yaffa. This same settler-colonial discourse drives the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, where destruction is reframed through the narrative of “uninhabitability.” Gaza is increasingly depicted as a lifeless ruin—a framing that is far from neutral. This commentary contends that “uninhabitable” is a politically charged term that masks culpability, reproduces colonial erasure, and shapes policy and public perception in ways that profoundly affect Palestinian lives and futures. It examines the origins, function, and implications of this discourse within the logic of settler colonialism, calling for a radical shift in language from narratives that obscure violence to those affirming Palestinian presence, history, and sovereignty.
Abdalrahman Kittana· Aug 27, 2025
 Politics
Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has produced one of the most catastrophic humanitarian crises in recent history—an unfolding genocide enabled by world powers and continuing unabated despite the sweeping global solidarity it has sparked. Alongside relentless bombardment and mass displacement, the Israeli regime is waging a deliberate campaign of starvation. In response to this Israeli-manufactured catastrophe, several European states have begun recognizing or signaling their intent to recognize the State of Palestine. Most recently, France announced its intention to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. The UK has stated it will follow suit unless Israel abides by a ceasefire and recommits to a two-state solution. The recent wave of symbolic recognitions that began in 2024 now appears to be the only step many European powers are willing to take in the face of genocide, following nearly two years of moral, material, and diplomatic support for the Israeli regime as well as near-total impunity. This roundtable conversation with Al Shabaka policy analysts Diana Buttu, Inès Abdel Razek, and Al Shabaka’s co-director, Yara Hawari, asks: Why now? What political or strategic interests are driving this wave of recognition? And what does it mean to recognize a Palestinian state, on paper, while leaving intact the structures of occupation, apartheid, and the genocidal regime that sustains them?
 Politics
In March, Israel shattered the ceasefire in Gaza by resuming its bombing campaign at full force and enforcing a total blockade on humanitarian aid—ushering in a new phase of the ongoing genocide. In response to mounting international criticism, the Israeli regime introduced a tightly controlled aid scheme designed not to alleviate suffering, but to obscure its use of starvation as a weapon of collective punishment. Through the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), Israel has transformed humanitarian aid into a tool of control, coercion, and forced displacement. Israeli forces have additionally blocked UN and other aid agencies from accessing over 400 distribution points they once operated throughout Gaza. They consequently forced two million Palestinians to rely on just four GHF sites, most near its southern border in what appears to be a deliberate effort to push mass displacement toward Egypt. Investigations have also revealed how US-based private contractors are actively profiting from the GHF’s deadly operations. In this policy lab, Yara Asi and Alex Feagans join host Tariq Kenney-Shawa to discuss how the GHF fits into Israel’s genocidal strategy—and to expose the network of individuals and companies profiting from what has been a death trap masquerading as humanitarian assistance.
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