The Unprotected Palestinians of Egypt
A day-long workshop took place on Saturday, September 13 to
discuss the research findings of Oroub al-Abed on the livelihood of
Palestinians living in Egypt. Approximately sixty people attended
the workshop at the American University in Cairo, including
representatives of the Red Cross, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Arab League, various human
rights' organizations, and a representative of a Palestinian PLO
union. This summary report of the history and status of Palestinian
refugees in Egypt was submitted to al-Majdal prior to the September
workshop.
While the main motorway to Cairo International airport is the path that takes one anywhere in the world, the road parallel to this highway leads to Madinet el Salam, a newly-constructed housing complex, where many Palestinians live. It represents the dead end for Palestinian youth whose future is limited to becoming a factory worker, if they are lucky, earning US$30 a month.
Ever since 1978 subsequent generations of Palestinians cannot
attend Egyptian public schools, must pay university fees in foreign
currency, and cannot work legally without a work permit.
Palestinians have been known as the most educated people of the
Middle East, but rapidly they are becoming the illiterate people in
some host countries of the Arab world.
The Arab League's 1965 protocol concerning the ‘Treatment of
Palestinians in the Arab States' made all host countries
responsible for treating Palestinians as nationals in respect to
mobility, free education, and work, without jeopardising their
Palestinian identity through such measures as naturalisation.
Except for Palestinians in Jordan who were naturalised, the
standards of 'treatment' of Palestinians in host states have been
plummeting. They are today the 'unprotected' stateless Palestinian
refugees of the Arab world.
The Zionist military attacks in 1947-1948 resulted in the expulsion
of 700,000 to 900,000 Palestinians from their own homes and
villages in historical Palestine. The majority were expelled to
Jordan, Syria and what has become the West Bank. Those who were
living on the coastal plains of Jaffa and Haifa left for Lebanon
and Egypt. The intensive attacks from the sea and encirclement of
the cities by British forces left the local inhabitants of Jaffa no
choice but to flee by boats to the south. Some arrived in Gaza and
remained there, others continued on to Port Said, Egypt.
As in any mass exodus, people tend to group themselves according to
their common origins, villages, families and networks. At the
beginning these headed directly towards Cairo, the capital. The
authorities permitted some of them to use old British military
settlements and gave tents to shelter the rest: "We lived in
military barracks with the same people who left Jaffa with us. We
had sheets dividing the one from another. Then the Mukhtar (chief)
of Mohammadi area permitted us to choose our space of land to build
little houses with the collected bricks from the roads", remembers
Um Walid. She was one of those who moved in the 1980's to Madinet
El Salam after the demolition of Arab el Mohammadi slums in
Abbasieh.
Palestinians who lived near Mohammadi mosque were called Arab El
Mohammadi. She said that they chose to stay in Cairo when in 1949
the Egyptian authorities gave Palestinians the choice of going to
Maghazi camp in Gaza. They expected life to be easier for them in a
well-established city like Cairo. It was not really the case. No
schools were available at the time in Abbassieh area, jobs were
scarce and there was little money. Many of this generation and
their descendants ended up becoming small entrepreneurs with
minimum education.
With the increased numbers of refugees coming to Egypt, the
authorities prepared what became called the 'city of refugees',
located in Qantara, the north east Egypt. The 'High Committee for
Palestinian Migrants Affairs' was formed to respond to the needs of
refugees in the Qantara, inhabited by some 12,000 refugees.
According to Laurie Brand, they were provided such basic services
as water, electricity and primary education schools, a sports club,
and a postal service.(1) Palestinians
were employed in some of the jobs of the camp.
In September 1949, an Egyptian ministerial council decided to move
Palestinians to Gaza, as the situation had become more stable. With
the help of the Quakers, Palestinians were sent mainly to Maghazi
camp. Another group of Palestinians were later sent to Gaza in 1951
sponsored by the Arab League and the Egyptian authorities. The
Government of Egypt never welcomed the idea of establishing any
refugee camps on its territory nor did it welcome the international
assistance provided by the specially created UN body to assist
Palestinians, the UN Relief and Works Agency.
Only well-to-do Palestinians or those who had support of a local
guarantor were to stay in Egypt. Others who remained because they
did not want to go to Gaza for reasons of safety ended up staying
in the slums of Cairo or its suburbs working in the informal sector
or depending on wage labour in factories where they are
exploited.
The estimated figure today of Palestinians in Egypt is 70,000
according to government officials. 52 percent of this population is
found in urban areas as in Cairo and its districts and in
Alexandria. The rest live in North Sinai, Areish and the Sharqieh
areas working in the agricultural wage labour jobs.
The purpose of establishing UNRWA was to carry out relief and works
programme and to ensure the economic independence of Palestinian
refugees, but as Susan Akram
points out, all Palestinian refugees have been treated as
ineligible for the most basic protection rights that international
law should proffer refugees and stateless persons.(2) UNRWA's responsibilities, based on UNGA
Resolution 302, are, in fact, only "to prevent conditions of
starvation and distress among them and to further conditions and
stability", not to protect.
The mandate of UNRWA was limited to the five field operation of
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza. In accordance with
paragraph 7(c) of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
statute and Article 1(D) of the 1951 Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees, 'the competence of the HCR does not extend to a
person receiving from other organs or agencies of the UN protection
or assistance', hence persons enjoying the assistance of UNRWA are
excluded. One would have expected, however, that Palestinian
refugees living elsewhere were to be protected by the UNHCR. On the
ground, UNHCR did not undertake its responsibilities to the
Palestinian refugees in Egypt until 2000.
UNHCR Registers Palestinian Refugees in Iraq |
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Palestinians in Egypt had been
provided some assistance by the Egyptian authority - free primary,
secondary, and university education and were employed in public
sector jobs. Since the signing of the peace process with Israel in
1977 and the killing of the Minister of Culture in 1978, all has
changed. The Palestinians were not welcome anymore and they were
required to live without any of the public services that are
available to Egyptians.
In principle, the Government of Egypt has been abiding by the Arab
League's 1954 Resolution on the issue of 'Unified Travel Documents
for Palestinian Refugees'; it issues travel documents as identity
cards. This travel document can be used for travel outside Egypt so
long as it does not exceed six months of stay abroad. If it is
exceeded, the person is not permitted to enter Egypt. Many
Palestinian families, whose children travelled for work, study or
marriage, despair ever seeing them again.
The stay of Palestinians in Egypt requires the renewal of the
residency permit. Renewal requirements vary with the year of
arrival in Egypt. For those who arrived in 1948, a residency permit
is valid for five years, while those who arrived in 1967 must renew
it every three years. People who arrived after 1967 are given
permits which are valid between nine months to three months.
For some, the regulations of residency cannot be met. Young men who
are not attending school are asked to provide a bank statement
indicating a balance of at least 25,000 Egyptian pounds or a work
permit. A vicious circle. A work permit will not be issued without
a residency permit and accumulating a 25,000 Egyptian pound bank
account cannot be generated if there is no work. Many men live in
the shadows of illegality not having a valid residency permit.
In 1991, after the Gulf War, there were said to be 130,000
Palestinians living in Egypt. Today they are said to be about half
that many. What happened to the others? Some of them, because they
were members of Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) received
'family reunification' cards to move to Gaza and the West Bank.
They received a Palestinian Travel Document with the indirect
blessing of the Israeli authorities. Others simply moved to the
territories on the invitation of a friend or relative. This
visiting permit (tasreeh) is only valid three months. Evidently
many have overstayed the permit and have lost their Egyptian travel
document as a result. So, whether in the Occupied Territories or in
Egypt, Palestinian refugees remain unprotected and stateless.
Endnotes
(1) Brand, Laurie, Palestinians in the Arab
World. Beirut: Institute of Palestinian Studies, Beirut, 1991.
(2) Akram, Susan, 'Reinterpretation
Palestinian Refugee Rights under International Law', in Aruri,
Naseer (ed.) Palestinian Refugees, Right of Return. London: Pluto
Press, 2001.
Oroub al-Abed is a researcher at the Forced Migration and
Refugee Studies Programme, American University in Cairo, who has
conducted a qualitative study of the livelihood of Palestinians
refugees in Egypt. For more information about the findings please
contact the author.
email: [email protected]