And if they leave Lebanon for more than a year, Palestinians lose the right to return. Down the road from Abu Mohammed's paint store, the crumbling kindergarten smells like an infested well. Children play ball in the open sewage. An application for a permit required to treat the rot and rising damp has gone unanswered. They don't want to admit we exist.
Aid workers say the conditions here are even worse than in Gaza.
Only Lebanon denies Palestinians their civil rights. But if they don't go through these terrible moments, they might be tempted to stay in Lebanon, and they'd end up losing their right and the will to return. Giving civil rights to exiled Palestinians now, insists Beirut, would be a first step to resettlement. Israel, not the Lebanese, they say, should be made to pay the price for the Palestinian exodus. But there's little sign of that happening.