"During the visit, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman told the delegation that "Lebanon does not have the capacity to absorb 400,000 people; we simply cannot offer them a good life. The truth is that we will not see peace in the Middle East without the implementation of the refugees' right of return."

Foreign Minister Ali Chami said, "it is not acceptable that Palestinians have been living outside their own state since 1948. The half a million in Lebanon are in complete misery and a very dire situation. The clear solution is the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital". He also spoke of the Israelis' intransigence: "since 1978, according to UN resolutions, Israel has violated Lebanese sovereignty every day, while the international community has failed to deter them."

Referring to Israel's invasions and occupation of Lebanon, Lebanese parliamentary deputy speaker Abdel-Latif Al-Zein said, "Lebanon has endured a lot for the Palestinian cause... It is high time the West liberated itself from double standards and stopped supporting satellite regimes that do not respect Palestinian rights." A Lebanese Hizbullah MP also remarked that "more than two million people have been killed because of this cause. There are millions of Palestinian victims around the world and the international community has paid out billions of dollars, but there is still no solution." "

http://weekly.ahram.org.g/2011/1042/op9.htm

'Perpetual hell' of the Palestinian refugee camps

A delegation of British and European MPs has underlined the appalling conditions suffered by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, writes Stuart Littlewood in London