Young Palestinians in Lebanon Dream of a Future Abroad

In this picture taken on April 19, 2023, Nirmeen Hazineh, a young Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, poses atop a rooftop at the Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
In this picture taken on April 19, 2023, Nirmeen Hazineh, a young Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, poses atop a rooftop at the Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
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Young Palestinians in Lebanon Dream of a Future Abroad

In this picture taken on April 19, 2023, Nirmeen Hazineh, a young Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, poses atop a rooftop at the Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
In this picture taken on April 19, 2023, Nirmeen Hazineh, a young Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, poses atop a rooftop at the Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees in the southern suburbs of Beirut. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)

In Lebanon's impoverished Palestinian refugee camps, young people say they dream of leaving a struggling country where their families took refuge generations ago and where their futures remain bleak.

Nirmeen Hazineh is a descendant of survivors of what Palestinians call the Nakba -- the "catastrophe" -- when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

She proudly considers herself from Jaffa -- now south of Tel Aviv -- and talks as if she has lived there all her life, instead of in the ramshackle Shatila refugee camp south of Beirut.

"Emigration has become the main solution for young people," said Hazineh, 25.

"Whoever you speak to, they'll tell you 'I want to leave', whether legally or illegally, it doesn't matter," she told AFP.

Lebanon has been grappling with a devastating economic crisis since late 2019.

Most of the population is now in poverty, according to the United Nations, and many Lebanese have quit the country for better prospects abroad.

Hazineh is a sociology graduate but is not allowed to practice in her field, as Lebanon bars Palestinians from working in 39 professions, including as doctors, lawyers and engineers.

Instead she helps to raise awareness of the dangers of drugs, which add to the daily misery of Shatila.

"There is a kind of despair among young people in the camp," said Hazineh, who despite the difficulties maintains a radiant smile.

She said she wanted to live "in a country that respects me, that gives me a chance, a job".

Tiny Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, while almost double that number are registered for the organization's services.

Most Palestinians, including more than 30,000 who fled the war in neighboring Syria after 2011, live in one of Lebanon's 12 official camps, now bustling but impoverished urban districts.

Shatila is a warren of tumbledown homes where tangled electricity cables criss-cross tight alleyways.

Walid Othman, 33, says he spends his spare time in political activism with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is banned in Israel.

Othman said he would have liked to study political science and dedicate his life to "defending the Palestinian cause on an international level".

But he had to stop his studies because of "the difficult economic situation" and instead became a blacksmith.

In Lebanon, Palestinians' "denied right to own property... further complicates employment and income generation activities", said Dorothee Klaus, director of UNRWA affairs for Lebanon.

Lebanon says restrictions on Palestinians are justified by their right to return to their country.

In neighboring Syria, some 400,000 Palestinians are registered with UNRWA, where they have access to the job market.

In Jordan, more than half of the around 10 million population is of Palestinian origin, while some 2.3 million Palestinians are registered with UNRWA but have the same rights as Jordanians.

"With no prospect of meaningful future", Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have "attempted to migrate whenever possible", Klaus said.

But their travel documents "may not be recognized", and they may be "required to file visas related to stateless persons", she added.

Mohammad Abdel Hafiz lamented that Palestinians in Lebanon "don't even enjoy the most basic rights".

"Everybody is born in a country, while we are born where our heart is," said the 29-year-old, who volunteers for the Palestinian civil defense in Shatila.

As he zips through its alleys on his moped, he dreams of leaving, but his chances of getting a visa to a Western country are slim.

And he is haunted by the memory of three young camp residents who drowned when a boat carrying would-be migrants sank off the Lebanese coast last year.

"They died because they wanted to have a future," Abdel Hafiz said.

"Here, our aim is just to survive."



Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Iran-Israel War: A Lifeline for Netanyahu?

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony on the eve of Israel's Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers at the Yad LaBanim Memorial in Jerusalem, on April 29, 2025. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.

On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.

Nearly two years on from Hamas's unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for, said AFP.

Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.

Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in "Bibi" the man of the moment.

– 'Reshape the Middle East' –

For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran -- a fear shared by most Israelis.

Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu's argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws "a lot of public support" and that the prime minister has been "greatly strengthened".

Even the opposition has rallied behind him.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.

A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.

The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to "reshape the Middle East."

During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defenses.

Israel's then-defense minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted "the balance of power" and had "weakened" Iran.

"In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran)," said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel's Open University.

Since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.

"Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself -- not the one who reacts -- and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model," Charbit said.

"But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers."

– Silencing critics –

For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a "necessary war," according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialized in Israel at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.

"Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones," she added.

"It's very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad."

In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel's military had reached unprecedented levels.

After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.

"There's more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran," explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing "the dirty work... for all of us."

The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.

But for Perelman, "Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has."