Country: Syria

Group: Palestinian

Date Finalized: 4/12/2021

Team: Maya Shrikant (lead), Johanna McComb, Omer Carrillo, Mahad Alam

Content Warning: war, physical violence, genocide, discrimination, racism

Approximate Time Period: 1948-present

There is sufficient evidence that Syrian officials and the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict forced Palestinians away from settlements within and along Syria’s borders.

Following the creation of Israel in 1948, over 500,000 Palestinians became refugees seeking resettlement in Syria. Initially Syria did not grant Palestinians citizenship, but offered them economic cultural integration opportunities (Minority Rights Group, 2018). In 1983, when the Assad regime assumed control of Syria, the government began arresting Palestinian populations and denying them entry into the country. These measures led to the creation of refugee camps along the Iraqi-Syrian border. These unsheltered camps left the Palestinian population vulnerable during the Syrian Civil War which occurred between 2011 and 2016. In Yarmouk and Damascus, the refugee communities have been described as the worst humanitarian situations created by the war. In 2012, the Assad regime sieged these camps and bombed them heavily. The majority of Palestinian residents had to flee. In total, from 1948 to 2012, over 120,000 Palestinian people have fled the country and 280,000 have faced recurrent displacement. Another 43,000 are still trapped in inaccessible areas of the country. Recently, in 2015, ISIS took control of many Palestinian refugee communities. A large number of these refugees have died because of insufficient resources and violence in the area (Minority Rights Group, 2018).

          The data quality for this group and code is a 2, because there was ample evidence but only a few reliable sources available. Overall, there was sufficient evidence to support the affirmation of the forced away code for Syrian Palestinians.

Sources

  1. Minority Rights Group. (March 2018). Palestinians. Accessed April 12, 2021 https://minorityrights.org/minorities/palestinians-4/.