Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are treated as second-class residents, restricted from working in most fields, banned from owning property, forced to live in run-down camps and barred from formal education.
Palestinians cannot own businesses in Lebanon and are banned from most decent-paying professions, including medicine and law. An estimated two-thirds live in poverty. The government will not give citizenship rights to Palestinian refugees, for fear it could make them stay forever.
“This is a cruel and false hypothesis,” Bassam Khawaja, a Beirut-based spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera. “Nothing prevents Lebanon from respecting Palestinians’ basic human rights while withholding permanent residency or citizenship. But instead, generations have grown up in limbo, without basic protections.”
Unlike Lebanese citizens, Palestinians cannot obtain free treatment at hospitals. They are also barred from most public schools. UNRWA has opened 67 schools and 27 clinics in Lebanon, but the clinics are only for general check-ups, while refugees with serious illnesses, such as cancer, must seek help from other NGOs.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/16/palestinians-in...
Original: Palestinians in Lebanon: ‘It’s like living in a prison’