Colin Sheridan: Unrwa’s uncertain future leaves generations of Palestinians fearing the worst

Nesrine’s story traces a lifetime of exile and statelessness — a fate shared by hundreds of thousands in Lebanon today

Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut: 'There are 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Pictures: Colin Sheridan

Nesrine arrived in Lebanon in her mother's womb in 1948. Her parents were forcibly evicted from their home in the coastal city of Haifa, Palestine, during the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” an Arabic term that refers to mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. 

She can’t remember where she spent her childhood years — “somewhere in the south,” she dismissively says with a wave of her hand — but can certainly recall with great clarity her years spent living across the Palestinian Refugee Camps of Beirut.