Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on February 1, 2014 shows residents of Syria’s besieged Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, receiving food parcels from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). (AFP Photo/HO/SANA)

Opinion: The UN can and must do more

by Bakir Oweida | Feb 13, 2014 | Opinion

The image of the ration card issued by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) remains fresh in my memory. The card was blue in color and its borders were surrounded by puncture marks caused but its being perforated each time rations...

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Palestinian youths walk past Israel’s controversial separation barrier at the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, where thousands of Muslim worshippers queued to cross into Jerusalem on August 4, 2013 on their way to attend the Lailat al-Qadr night prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the last week of the holy month of Ramadan. (AFP PHOTO/ABBAS MOMANI.)

Opinion: The Secret Life of Palestine

by Bakir Oweida | Aug 9, 2013 | Opinion

Happy Eid? I have to admit that I have borrowed the word “pessoptimism” from the title of the tragicomic novel The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (1974) by the late Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi. Were the author alive, he would immediately ask me to be...

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Palestinian women, who had been living at Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, wait outside the Lebanese immigration authority to have their papers stamped at the Lebanese-Syrian border, in al-Masnaa December 18, 2012. (Reuters/Jamal Saidi)

Attempt to secure return of Palestinian refugees in Syria fails

by Nazeer Rida | Jul 13, 2013 | Middle East

Tel Aviv, Asharq Al-Awsat—Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had sought to secure the return of all Palestinian refugees in Syria to either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. The plan was foiled by Tel Aviv, Asharq Al-Awsat has learned. The Syrian crisis, which has...