Palestinian Refugee Numbers Pass 6 Million, Authorities Say

More than six million Palestinian refugees are registered with the UN refugee agency UNRWA, according to Palestinian authorities on Thursday.

In a statement marking World Refugee Day, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said 2.5 million refugees live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, constituting 42% of the registered Palestinian refugees.

The statement said that refugees comprise around 66% and 26.3% of the population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively.

According to the statement, around 40.2 Palestinian refugees in the diaspora live in Jordan, 9.7% live in Syria and 8.2% in Lebanon.

"These estimates represent the minimum number of Palestinian refugees, taking into account that they are unregistered refugees, as this number does not include those Palestinians who were displaced after 1949 until the eve of the war of June 1967," the statement said.

"It also does not include Palestinians who left or were deported in 1967 on the grounds of war and those who were not refugees in the first place."

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar -