Peace must begin with the plight of Palestine’s refugees

Sixty years after the UN moved to address the fate of the dispossessed, we need to accept that the injustice endures

Karen Abu Zayd, The Guardian/UK, Dec 8, 2009

Sixty years ago today the United Nations general assembly voted into existence a temporary body known as UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA’s task was to deal with the humanitarian consequences of the dispossession of some three-quarters of a million Palestine refugees forced by the 1948 Middle East war to abandon their homes and flee their ancestral lands. Just two decades later, the six-day war generated another spasm of violence and forced displacement, culminating in the occupation of Palestinian territory. Today, anguished exile remains the lot of Palestinians and Palestine refugees. The occupation of Palestinian land persists, there is no Palestinian state, and the human rights and fundamental freedoms to which Palestinians are entitled under international law do not exist.

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Tags: evictions from East Jersualem, Israel, Israeli occupation, Karen Abu Zayd, Palestine refugees, Palestinians, UNRWA