Op-Ed: The Unseen Consequences of Israel’s Impunity: How the Palestinian Refugee Crisis Fuels Global Displacement and Erodes International Responsibility

By Erin Gable

The forced displacement of civilians is a symptom of all global conflicts, but this consequence often remains overlooked and unaddressed. Israel’s current assault on Gaza is unique in its refusal to acknowledge the basic human right to flee conflict as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While Israelis were able to flee the country following Hamas’ attack on October 7th, 2023, Palestinians are denied the same luxury. Israel’s 2001 bombing of Gaza’s only airport severed any chance for refuge and semblance of Palestinian sovereignty, trapping them in what is known as an open-air prison. Israel’s no-exit policy, enforced through its Policy of Separation (Hafrada), prevents movement between Gaza and the West Bank, denying Palestinians their basic right to freedom of movement, even during times of high conflict. Despite the overwhelming documentation of Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza—and the International Court of Justice’s determination that these actions plausibly constitute genocide—the global response remains one of passive complicity, with an unrelenting flow of military, economic, and diplomatic support to Israel despite its global ramifications and Israel’s violations of international and U.S. law. As global conflicts intensify, the UNHCR reported that by the close of 2024, the number of displaced people worldwide would exceed 122 million and continue to rise. Given the already alarming scale of displacement, it remains uncertain whether the international community can manage this level of displacement and its humanitarian needs, particularly in light of the exacerbated refugee crisis precipitated by Israel’s ongoing indiscriminate aerial campaign and ground incursions in both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Since its incursion into the Gaza Strip in October 2023, Israel has committed the most devastating aerial campaign in recent memory. To make matters worse, Israel has intensified its siege by sealing all border crossings, severing access to food, water, electricity, and fuel. At the time of this publication and without international intervention, Israel has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, with more than half identified as women and children—the most child deaths in any conflict over the past four years—and more humanitarian workers in Gaza than in any other conflict. More than 90% of Gaza’s population remains internally displaced due to relentless bombings and forced evacuation orders, with virtually no safe passage out of the Gaza Strip nor refuge within it, as Israel continues to target sites protected under the laws of war. Designated safety zones, such as refugee camps, schools, hospitals, churches, and mosques, have been critical shelters for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Palestinians, but Israel’s unprecedented destruction has destroyed at least 117 churches and mosques, including some of the world’s oldest places of worship. The World Health Organization has reported the destruction of over 470 healthcare facilities, including 319 attacks on ambulances. Gaza’s population exceeds 2.1 million, with over 1.5 million Palestinians dependent on UNRWA’s services in Gaza. Since Israel’s invasion in October 2023, Palestinian refugees are left without alternatives for their basic needs, including housing, as 90% of  UNRWA’s refugee housing installations have been reduced to rubble.

As Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories enters its 77th year, a deeper, more far-reaching issue looms in the background—one that threatens stability not just in the Middle East but across its surrounding regions. Israel’s actions are driving irregular migration patterns among Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese alike. UNRWA-Lebanon currently houses nearly 500,000 Palestinian refugees and 31,000 Syrian refugees. As Palestinians and Lebanese flee from Lebanon into Syria, Syrian refugees—who had initially sought refuge from the recently toppled Assad regime—are now moving between Syria and Lebanon. So far, more than 100,000 Lebanese have fled to Syria due to Israeli airstrikes, adding to the strain in a country already overwhelmed by long-standing Palestinian displacement and the ongoing fallout from the Syrian Civil War. Overshadowed by other migration crises and the politicization of migrants and refugees alike, the Palestinian Refugee Crisis has affected over 7 million Palestinians across three generations within the occupied territories, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, rendering it the longest unresolved refugee crisis with the Palestinians as the largest group of stateless persons worldwide. 

Western media and politics often oversimplify the experience of refugees, overlooking the complexities they face. The Palestinian Question is not simply an oversight within a flawed human rights framework; the 1951 Refugee Convention makes it systematically harder for Palestinians to find refuge and long-term solutions to the refugee crisis. While the Convention outlines the definition of a refugee, including their rights and legal protections, Article 1D, otherwise known as the ‘exclusionary clause,’ denies the basic protections outlined in the Convention to those receiving assistance from agencies besides the UNHCR. All Palestinian refugees, by definition, are lumped intrinsically under the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and are thus entirely excluded.

Established in 1949, two years before the Convention, UNRWA grants its designation to the descendants through patrilineal inheritance, with little to no opportunity to break free from the entrenched refugee paradigm. This caveat has kept the Palestinian Refugee Crisis in UNRWA’s sphere of restrictive and inadequate socio-economic services, with limited foreign aid compared to the actual needs on the ground, in the occupied territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. This has caused a cycle of dependency and strain on UNRWA’s services spanning multiple generations of Palestinian refugees. This ongoing practice of refugee warehousing perpetuates Palestinian reliance on UNRWA and its services, reinforcing a cycle of dependency that allows Article 1D of the Refugee Convention to exclude Palestinians from their full refugee rights. Confining this crisis to UNRWA’s mandate allows the international community to passively absolve itself of its broader responsibilities toward Palestinian refugees. This inaction makes it impossible to achieve a concrete solution to their prolonged displacement, which is continually exacerbated by Israel’s apartheid policies and settlement expansions in the absence of adequate international intervention.

The consequences of this unchecked displacement extend beyond Palestine, making Israel’s actions a growing liability for the international community. Since expanding its displacement efforts into Lebanon in October 2024, Israel has killed over 3,000 Lebanese and exacerbated the refugee crisis facing Europe and the Middle East. According to UNHCR, the number of displaced people has been rising at a steady rate of 8% every 12 years. Moreover, amid escalating global conflicts—including the ongoing violence involving Israel—UNHCR predicts a 20% increase in resettlement needs by 2025. As a result of increasing protracted refugee situations, neighboring states, including Europe—already overwhelmed by refugee crises—are expected to face even greater pressures. Additionally, the Global South, which hosts over 70% of the world’s refugee population, will be further burdened by these challenges, compounded with subsequent humanitarian disasters and overwhelming the agencies tasked with managing it. This surge in displacement, combined with a strained international refugee regime, will further complicate efforts to resolve the high levels of protracted displacement.

Despite mounting evidence of ongoing genocide in Gaza and Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlements and apartheid policies in the occupied territories, the international community continues to blatantly ignore Israel’s clear intent to permanently displace the people of Palestine. The dismissal of the conflict’s inevitable global ramifications is stoking the global refugee crisis, a challenge that states should seek to address collectively, rather than endorsing the mechanisms that perpetuate it, such as the 49 U.S. vetoes of U.N. resolutions that have successfully blocked efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza. Normalizing the forced displacement and containment of Palestinians, as well as the irregular movement between Lebanon and Syria, places an undue burden on states already fatigued with refugee crises. This should alarm policymakers, yet refugees continue to be politically weaponized in a way that villainizes refugees rather than addressing the root causes of protracted displacement. By disregarding Israel’s actions and evading global accountability, refugee crises around the world will inevitably worsen, fanning the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment. At what point will the international community stop blaming refugees for fleeing conflicts funded by the Global North and hold its governments and institutions accountable for perpetuating the refugee upheaval that continues to leave displaced persons in a protracted state of limbo?

Author’s Note

This article was originally written in October and, after the editorial process, was published just days after President Trump’s inauguration and before he made any official statements about the Gaza Strip. The strategy of relocating Palestinian refugees has been tried, tested, and, time and again, proven inefficient in addressing the overall refugee crises, ultimately leaving swaths of Palestinians vulnerable to the whims of foreign leaders. The solution for Palestinians is not and should not be exile.

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