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Palestinian Refugees in Egypt

 * Today, an estimated 50,000-70,000 Palestinians live as refugees in the state of Egypt They are refused assistance from the government and denied access to any of the country's public services . They are neglected by the UN bodies in charge of refugee issues and as a result face many challenges in areas of education, transnational travel, and property ownership rights . Unlike Palestinian refugees living in other Middle Eastern territories, Palestinians in Egypt are refused protection from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) . Essentially, Palestinians in Egypt live as an unprotected, stateless group of people residing in a country that refuses to grant them citizenship . They are constantly forced to hide their identity and many live their lives out of fear and shame.

Responses at the beginning

 * On April 25, 1948, nearly 3,000 Arabs traveled to the ports of Sa'id and Alexandria . Foreseeing the challenges that this wave of refugees would bring, the government in Egypt ordered the Egyptian Ministry of Social Affairs to make preparations to receive Palestinians fleeing from the violence in Palestine . In order to appropriately accommodate the fleeing Palestinians, several shelter camps were set up and organized . The first camp was in Cairo and the second camp was in Al Qantarah El Sharqiyya . Less than a month after the establishment of these camps, on May 9th, the Prime Minister of Egypt ordered the establishment of the Higher Committee for Palestinian Immigrant Affairs . This committee held representatives from ministries of social affairs, defense, agriculture, foreign affairs, and additionally the Director of General Security Administration .   The committee was given a budget of LE 300,000 to deal specifically with relief work .  In 1949, the two camps merged together at the Al Qantarah location with a total count of 11,000 refugees .  While the camps proved to be helpful in their early years of establishment, after time, the Palestinians living there began wanting to move into places of permanent residence within Egypt .  In order to address these desires, the Egyptian government formed a special committee to examine each refugee case .  The terms that the committee used when granting residence were as follows: if the refugee had sufficient funds to provide for himself and his family and knew an Egyptian National who was willing to serve as a guarantor, he was assigned a passport by the Ministry of Interior that gave him temporary residence that varied in length depending on the details of each case . Of all of the cases that were examined, only about 4,000 were granted the freedom to leave the camps which resulted in a remainder of 7,000 refugees living in the camps at the war's end.