"Racism & discrimination are a serious threat to life, dignity & human rights. Each of us can help #FightRacism to create more peaceful societies." United Nations

United Nations

@UN

 

"For refugees. 

For stateless people. 

For asylum-seekers. 

For internally displaced people. 

 

For EVERYONE. 

 

Racism & discrimination are a serious threat to life, dignity & human rights. 

 

Each of us can help #FightRacism to create more peaceful societies."

 

– via @Refugees  

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency 

 

 

For peace, dignity & equality on a healthy planet... The United Nations @UN

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies] 

The US government has tried for the second time to deport a stateless Palestinian woman, according to court documents – despite a judge’s order barring her removal.

Ward Sakeik. Photograph: Change.org

US tries to deport stateless Palestinian woman again despite judge’s order

The US government has tried for the second time to deport a stateless Palestinian woman, according to court documents – despite a judge’s order barring her removal.

Ward Sakeik, a 22-year-old newlywed, was detained in February on her way home from her honeymoon in the US Virgin Islands. Last month, the government attempted to deport her without informing her where she was being sent, according to her husband, Taahir Shaikh. An officer eventually told her that she would be sent to the Israel border – just hours before Israel launched airstrikes on Iran.

After her lawyers filed suit on behalf, US district judge Ed Kinkeade issued an order on 22 June barring the government from deporting Sakeik or removing her from the Texas district where she is being detained while her case is decided.

But on Monday, the government tried once again to deport her. Officers at the detention facility woke her up early in the morning on Monday, and told her she “had to leave”. When she tried to tell the officer there was a court order blocking her removal, the officer responded: “It’s not up to me.”

“Sakeik informed me that when she arrived at intake, her belongings had been placed outside the door,” her lawyer testified in court documents.

Sakeik’s family is from Gaza, but she was born in Saudi Arabia, which does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of foreigners.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/stateless-palestinian-woman-deportation-ward-sakeik

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies

‘A constant state of panic’: how war in Gaza triggered new wave of depression and insomnia among Palestinian refugees from 1967 war The stress of seeing the destruction of their homeland sent rates of mental illness soaring in Jordan’s Jerash camp – and the ceasefire has brought scant relie

Umm Ahmed practises tatreez, a centuries-old embroidery technique passed down through generations and now used as a therapy by Palestinian women in ‘Gaza camp’, named after the region most of the residents came from in 1967

Photographs by Alaa Atwah

Supported by

About this content

 

Thaslima Begum  

Thaslima Begum is an award-winning journalist with a focus on women, conflict and human rights

Fri 24 Jan 2025 04.00 EST

Last modified on Fri 24 Jan 2025 04.03 EST

Among the hills of northern Jordan, three miles west of the Roman ruins of Jerash, a sprawling settlement is home to more than 40,000 Palestinian people. Set up as an emergency shelter to accommodate 11,500 Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Jerash camp – known locally as Gaza camp – was intended as a temporary solution.

The initial clusters of tents have since evolved into a more permanent settlement, where generations of refugees have grown up. Jordan hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees in the world and most of the 2.3 million living there have been granted citizenship.

But the Palestinians who arrived in 1967 remain stateless. Without national IDs, they cannot find work, own property or receive state benefits. More than 88% of people in Gaza camp do not have health insurance.

One of the camp’s earliest inhabitants was Mokhtar Yahya, who arrived there as a baby. Born in Rafah a few weeks before the 1967 war broke out, his parents fled from Gaza to Jordan carrying him in a blanket.

They had sought refuge in Gaza camp firmly believing that their exile would be shortlived. But three generations of the family have now spent their entire lives in the camp..... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/24/palestinian-refugees-jordan-jerash-camp-gaza-grief-depression-mental-illness

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict USA Today 1-5-2023

Anan Ameri & Dick Soble: "For any two other people, the debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might have gotten ugly.  He’s Jewish and supports a two-state solution. She’s Palestinian and wants one state with equal rights, which critics say would spell the end for a Jewish homeland. He condemns the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. She says it was to be expected. Though she doesn’t want civilians killed, “violence,” she says, “breeds violence.” 

But these two are not enemies. They’re best friends, and have been close for more than 50 years."

 50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Violet Ikonomova

USA TODAY NETWORK

Jan 5 2024

"... On a one- versus two-state solution, Ameri supports one, covering the area of Israel and the Palestinian territories. She previously supported two, but now sees the more than 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as an insurmountable barrier and doesn’t believe a nation of Palestine would be permitted to arm itself.

Soble supports two states, in part to maintain a Jewish homeland in the event global antisemitism again rises near the extremes of the Holocaust.

But on an overarching point, they agree: Both want an immediate end to the war.

“There are those who believe in one-state, two-state, and there are now 17,000 people who have no state,” Soble said, referring to the number of Palestinians killed by the time they spoke. “So we have to prioritize what we put our political efforts behind, and any other discussion sidetracks us from (the cease-fire being) critical to getting to any other solution.”

Interviewed separately, Ameri and Soble both spoke to the shared values and principles they say make their open dialogue possible"...  READ MORE https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/05/cross-cultural-friendship-survives-israeli-palestinian-conflict/72087017007/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

A Palestinian refugee family... 1948 Palestine/Israel-> Syria-> 2013 Lebanon, and in Lebanon they have had to move six times already

stateless: adjective
(of a person) not recognized as a citizen of any country.

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/features/what-was-lost

What Was Lost

Lebanon

With deep sadness and despair, Amal tells us that she is a teacher of the Arabic language; she’s not used to begging and asking for help. But given her current circumstances, she is ready to work in any field, even cleaning houses so that she and her daughter can live in dignity.

That’s been a challenge ever since she fled the conflict in Syria in April 2013, seeking safety in the Palestine refugee camp of Beddawi in northern Lebanon. She’s had to move six times already, from living with her husband's relatives to moving in with a friend whose house was in the conflict zone between the Tripoli neighbourhoods of Jebel Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh. Afraid of the shelling and bombing, Amal and her 8-year-old daughter fled again. “We did not leave Syria to save our lives and come here and die without a reason”, Amal says, back in Beddawi.

The tone of her voice rises and tears glisten in her eyes as she describes her pain and suffering. “It seems as though torture and displacement from one house to another are our destiny. I have lost my so-called dignity”, she says.

Amal’s husband returned to Syria to provide for his family, but she says their condition in Lebanon is one of “agony, pain and suffering.” Housing and living expenses are high, and UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) rental subsidies and food assistance “are unfortunately not enough” to offset the costs. “We get US$ 100 in rental subsidies and US$ 30 per person in food assistance,” she explains. “These amounts helped us survive a whole month when we were in Syria before the conflict, but in Lebanon they are sadly not enough.”

In Beddawi, Amal and her daughter have settled with the seven members of a Syrian refugee family. They share a room that does not even meet the lowest standards. There is no roof to protect them from the rain, but sunlight does not come in. They lack covers and sheets, even furniture.  Nonetheless, Amal declares that she “contributes in paying the rent, and my share is LBP 275,000 (US$ 180).”

Amal emphasizes that she still hangs on because of her daughter. The 8-year-old is enrolled in the UNRWA Al-Mazar school in Beddawi. After a moment of silence, Amal concludes, “We lost everything – our house and our money – but education is still available. It is the saviour of my daughter’s future and the most important thing in life.”

> More on Palestine refugees

April - August 1948: More than 700,000 Palestine refugees are displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli War.

 Resolution 194

11th December 1948

The United Nations General Assembly adopts resolution 194 (III), resolving that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

When UNWRA began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.