UN agency joins petition against Israeli infiltration law
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
March 12, 2013 - 12:00am


The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) joined a petition filed by human rights organizations to the Supreme Court against the Israeli law of infiltration and asked to revoke it, local media reported Tuesday. The UNHCR's unprecedented move is an attempt to overturn a law which it claims "wrongly stigmatizes and penalizes those seeking refuge."


Over 85 percent Palestinians fled Syria’s Yarmouk camp: UNRWA
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Arabiya
March 12, 2013 - 12:00am


More than 85 percent of Palestinians living in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp have been displaced due to the violence that has gripped the country for the past two years, said the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).


UN: Jordan Should Allow in Palestinians From Syria
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Peter James Spielmann - March 11, 2013 - 12:00am


The U.N.'s chief relief official for Palestinians is urging Jordan to stop discriminating against Palestinian refugees fleeing the Syrian war and open its borders to them. The commissioner general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees says "all refugees should be treated equally."


Palestinian refugees in Syria face undue obstacles as crisis worsens: UN official
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
March 5, 2013 - 1:00am


A senior UN official on Monday said that the Syrian crisis is having dire effects on Palestinian refugees living in Syria, who face obstacles in receiving humanitarian assistance and are increasingly being drawn into the conflict. Filippo Grandi, the commissioner general of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), told a press conference here that keeping schools open and health centers open is "an increasing challenge in a situation of growing insecurity, lack of access and other problems."


Good-and-evil caricatures of the Israel-Palestine conflict are costing lives
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Telegraph
by Matt Hill - (Opinion) March 4, 2013 - 1:00am


Is there another issue that generates as much sound and fury as the Israel-Palestine conflict? Last month George Galloway attracted derision for storming out of an Oxford University debate when he discovered one of his opponents was an Israeli. The fallout continued into last week, with students at the university voting on whether to join a blanket boycott of Israeli companies and institutions.


Op-Ed: Begin was right to fire Sharon over ‘83 massacre
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
(Opinion) March 3, 2013 - 1:00am


Israel's State Archives last week released the previously classified minutes of a 1983 Cabinet meeting during which the government debated the Kahan Commission’s recommendation to fire Defense Minister Ariel Sharon on account of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The killings had taken place some months before, on Sept. 16, 1982, when 150 fighters of the Lebanese Christian Phalanges entered two Palestinian refugee camps and massacred 700 to 800 residents. The Israel Defense Forces, which controlled the area, allowed the Lebanese forces access to the camp.


Graves of the next intifada's victims are waiting in Dheisheh
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Chaim Levinson - March 1, 2013 - 1:00am


Residents of the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem have prepared a cemetery plot for the fatalities of the third intifada, although speculation of another armed popular rising seemed premature in the camp this week. “We don’t want another intifada,” says Fatah leader in Dheisheh Mohammed al-Jafari, facing the rows of new, empty graves. “We are the last generation you can make peace with. There’s a five-year window of opportunity.”


Medics say 3 hurt in Gaza shelling, Israel denies
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
March 1, 2013 - 1:00am


Medics said three Palestinians sustained injuries early Friday in a shelling attack in the central Gaza Strip, but Israel's army denied involvement. Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman of the Gaza health ministry, told Ma’an that two injured people were transferred to al-Shifa hospital and a third was transferred to al-Aqsa hospital. Al-Qidra said the three victims were moderately injured in a shelling attack on al-Burej refugee camp.


Arab-Israeli in Haifa uses art to help Palestinian refugee sister
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Gideon Levy - February 22, 2013 - 1:00am


  A childhood memory documented in a photo: A little boy is holding his mother's hand; his four siblings stand alongside them. The place is a refugee camp near Damascus. The year is 1950. This is where the Abdi family eventually fled to after escaping from their home in Haifa, which had been captured by the Haganah during the War of Independence.


Palestinian refugees’ hardships intensify
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Annie Slemrod - February 13, 2013 - 1:00am


The war in Syria has compounded what was already an emergency situation for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, UNRWA’s top official in the country said Tuesday. Veteran diplomat Ann Dismorr took up the position of director of UNRWA affairs last October, when only a few thousand Palestinian refugees had fled Syria for Lebanon. Since then, as violence hit the area in and around Damascus and broke into Yarmouk – Syria’s largest camp – the number of Palestinians crossing the border has soared.



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