Refugees welcome Palestinian bid for UN membership

Hundreds of Palestinian refugees gathered in a show of support for President Mahmoud Abbas’ bid for full UN membership.

In Lebanon, there are an estimated 300,000 refugees. A crowd gathered at a camp near Beirut watching the speech on huge TV screens, cheering and dancing to national songs.

One said: “this is an honour for us and this is our great hope. Yasser Arafat passed it on to Abbas so he could see it through and God willing he followed through with it and we wish for the best.”

Another group of refugees gathered near the UN office in the Jordanian capital Amman where they burned the Israeli flag and sang the Palestinian national anthem.

The UN estimates there are around 4.3m displaced Palestinians throughout the world.

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