That’s in part because there’s no clear scenario for how this war will end. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian demands for a return of refugees as part of a peace deal, arguing that it would threaten the country’s Jewish majority.Įgypt fears history will repeat itself and a large Palestinian refugee population from Gaza will end up staying for good. The diaspora has spread further, with many refugees building lives in Gulf Arab countries or the West.Īfter fighting stopped in the 1948 war, Israel refused to allow refugees to return to their homes. The refugees and their descendants now number nearly 6 million, most living in camps and communities in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 300,000 more Palestinians fled, mostly into Jordan.
