The paper explores the Palestinian refugees’ legal status in the Near East: Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It will focus more particularly on
the “Palestine refugees”, namely those Palestinian refugees (and their descendants)
living in the above-mentioned countries/territories registered by the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine refugees in the Near East.2 The 4.6
million “Palestine refugees” constitute about four-fifths of the total number of
Palestinian refugees living in the Near East and two-thirds of the total number of
Palestinian refugees around the world, estimated at about 7.5 millions (Badil
2006:49).