Walaa Kayyal, a researcher who lives herself as a Palestinian in Lebanon, made the following remark during an interview conducted by Asylos for this report on 31 October 2022:
“I would like to mention a very deeply rooted phenomenon. The Lebanese state is afraid to disrupt the sectarian balance in the country. Therefore they do not count how many Lebanese inhabitants there are. Because if they count how many Lebanese are in the country, they have to count how many are Sunni, how many are Shiaa’, how many are Christian Maronites, how many are Christian Orthodox Etc. And they don’t want this because they don’t want to say that, for example the Sunnah is the largest group? This is why the last census that Lebanon made was in 1932, and this goes back to the French Mandate. When people were under the French Mandate, the French conducted a census for the Lebanese in order to know how many Lebanese they were, and this was before it was a free country. So you don’t have a census. And this is done on purpose, as I explained. And this also applies to the Palestinians, so Lebanon does not count how many Palestinians live in Lebanon. Therefore you can find several numbers of how many Palestinians are in Lebanon. The most used number for the number of Palestinians in Lebanon is 300 000-something. Why is this number exaggerated? Because Palestinians tend to leave the country? For example, I
can now leave for the UK, and I seek asylum, and I become a UK citizen. But my registration in Lebanon is still ongoing and I continue to be counted as a Palestinian in Lebanon. So, again let’s say I give birth to four children. I will come to Lebanon, register them, although they are UK citizens. I register them in UNRWA and they get refugee cards. Most Palestinians tend to do this in order to keep their records in Lebanon. Also in the hope to retain their right to territorial Palestine. Because the Lebanese state does not follow up on this, they don’t know if I got a UK citizen or US citizenship, etc. And thus, I can still be entitled to refugee status in Lebanon, and I can even come and show a refugee paper for my children without them knowing that I actually have another citizenship. Therefore, the number of Palestinians on record is exaggerated. In reality there are less, since the majority of Palestinians have travelled.”
(Source: Walaa Kayyal, interview record, 31 October 2022)
UNRWA, in their 2020 “Protection brief Palestine refugees living in Lebanon reported that:
“475,000 Palestine Refugees from Lebanon (PRL) are currently registered with UNRWA in Lebanon. However, this figure does not represent the actual number present in the country as, for example, many have left over the years. For planning purposes UNRWA and the Government of Lebanon (GoL) estimate that there are 180,000 PRL in Lebanon. According to a 2017 headcount nearly half of the PRL live in the country’s 12 official Palestine refugee camps. Conditions in the camps are characterised by overcrowding, poor housing conditions, unemployment, poverty and lack of access to justice. The PRL arrived – or are descendants of those who arrived – in Lebanon following the 1948 conflict in Palestine. In addition, the conflict in Syria forced many people living in Syria to flee to neighbouring countries including Lebanon, which currently hosts around 1.5 million displaced Syrians and 27,700 Palestinian refugees from Syria (PRS).”
(Source: UNRWA: “Protection brief: Palestine refugees living in Lebanon”, September 2020)
It should be noted that under the current Constitution, Palestinians are unable to naturalise in Lebanon.26 However, of the 120, 000 persons who were granted Lebanese citizenship as a result of the Decree according to the source below, it is unclear how many Palestinians obtained Lebanese nationality:
A collective of NGOs working in Lebanon made a joint submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review in 2020 in which they stated that:
“12. While the exact number of stateless persons is not known, it is estimated that many thousands27 live in the country. In 199428, there was a wide naturalisation decree that granted Lebanese nationality to over 120,000 stateless residents. In 2010, Lebanese citizenship was granted to over 400 foreigners. In 2018, Lebanese citizenship was granted to over 100 foreigners and a few stateless persons. This demonstrates the discretionary nature of the executive’s use of naturalisation, while highlighting failures to address statelessness in the country.
13. Uncertainty regarding the number of stateless persons results from the very nature of statelessness and the lack of a census since 1932. The lack of data and difficulty to access available data contributes to perpetuating statelessness and to keeping stateless persons in Lebanon invisible and extremely marginalised. Also, insufficient priority is given to the implementation of measures to identify statelessness and protect the stateless. However, the stateless population in the country is understood to be increasing due to many families’ multigenerational statelessness, and increased displacement and migration.”
(Source: The Collective for Research & Training on Development- Action, The Nationality Campaign, Ruwad alHoukouk Frontiers Rights et al, “Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review”, July 2020, p. 4)
In its 2020 submission to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review for Lebanon, the UNHCR29 wrote that:
“There are estimated to be tens of thousands of stateless persons in Lebanon, with the exact number difficult to ascertain. The primary reasons for this are the lack of an official census since 1932 and the fact that many stateless persons do not have civil registration records. Stateless persons fall into two categories, namely (1) unregistered persons (maktoum al kayd) who are not registered with Lebanese authorities and (2) registered stateless persons (kayd al dars) whose status is considered as ‘nationality under study’ but hold special legal status in terms of residency and rights. (p. 2)”
(Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Lebanon: UNHCR Submission for the Universal Periodic Review – Lebanon – UPR 37th Session (2021)”, July 2020, p. 2)