Syria’s civil war has forced more than a million Syrians to flee their homeland in search of protection and shelter in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Palestinian refugees from Syria are particularly vulnerable as a result of the lack of recognition and support they receive from the international community.

Many of these Palestinian refugees are experiencing displacement for a second or third time. Statelessness multiplies the horrors and fears with each new war and displacement.

While the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees today is responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in the Middle East, Palestinian refugees remain outside its mandate and as such do not receive its relief aid. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has served Palestinian refugees for more than four decades, has sole responsibility for helping Palestinian refugees. But before the violence in Syria, the UN agency was already struggling to meet the needs of Palestinian refugees, especially the more than 260,000 living in 12 refugee camps in Lebanon.

That leaves Palestinian refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria in limbo. More than 50,000 Palestinians already have sought refuge in Lebanon. Thousands more arrive each month. They arrive with the clothes they are wearing and few or no resources to survive on their own. So they seek shelter with other Palestinian families who have been living for decades in Lebanon’s already overcrowded refugee camps. UNRWA, understandably, has been overwhelmed by the sudden influx and the challenge it presents to care for them.