About three months ago, I started working on a reporter investigating a Palestinian issue currently being waged at the level of Lebanon’s camps, namely “youth migration”.
While working on the investigation, I faced several dilemmas that were not easily overlooked or considered merely facts, which can be added to the many reasons for emigration that drive Palestinian refugee youth in Lebanon to leave without return.
Among these dilemmas was the crisis of unemployment exacerbated in the camps, which seems clear by simply crossing some of the boats in any camp and watching many young people of different ages sitting or standing at coffee machines, or at the entrances and some youth gatherings.
I missed to tell you that I am a resident of the camps, and the question I have throughout my life that I spent between the camps of Syria and Lebanon is about the possibility of continuing this form of life inside the camps ?!
The answer usually holds different visions, beginning that life in the camps will not continue as it is now, and that a real change will happen one day.
S.H, a young Palestinian woman who lives in the Burj al-Barajneh camp, studied pharmacy at a Lebanese university, but her reality as a student despite its difficulty in terms of securing the costs of completing education is completely different from the daily reality after her graduation, as it was not possible at all to work with her degree in Lebanon, Due to the laws that prohibit Palestinian refugees from working in about 36 professions, including pharmacy, medicine, engineering, law, and other professions.
S. considers that the problem lies precisely with the force majeure the Palestinian refugee suffers from, which now needs a real movement for change. Otherwise, most of them will try other ways of living, including immigration, although they confirm that they do not want such a way.
“The change may begin with the recognition of the civil rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon,” said S.H, adding that allowing her to work in city pharmacies or a hospital means that part of the living dilemmas will go away and her conditions will be the same as the Lebanese.
Like other Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, S.H affirms her total rejection of resettlement, and confirms that if she migrated, or settled in Lebanon on humanitarian terms, she would do so temporarily until the return came.
Likewise, a. A who lives in Mar Elias camp, as he considers that settlement should not be problematic, especially since the historical experiences of the Palestinian people are clearly visible, no one wants to remain in the camp, everyone wants to either return to Palestine or go to Europe and return from There via the new nationality.
A.A. provides an example of the Palestinian refugees in Syria, who were living with near-complete rights, but with the intensification of events and the entry of the Yarmouk camp on the line of the Syrian crisis, they migrated to Europe.
It is reported that a number of Syrian Palestinians who obtained European nationalities went to occupied Palestine in an attempt to enter it, some of them succeeded, and some prevented them from entering the occupation.
AA explains that the problem of the Palestinians lies not only in the rights to be secured for them, but rather by creating mechanisms for their return to their homes in accordance with international law or any other laws.
The reality of the situation indicates the real tragedy of the Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, and not putting things as they are will leave things as they are, and will even aggravate them, and will leave the door open in order to reach realistic solutions for Palestinians who only knew the deterioration in their living and human reality.