Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour says that his government will not allow any Palestinian refugees from Syria to flee into their country for the duration of the civil war, fearing the precedent it would set with Israel.
Ensour termed the refugees a “red line,” saying that Israel would see the admission of Syrian Palestinians as permission for a mass expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas has spurned Israel’s conditional offer to let the Syrian Palestinians flee into the West Bank, saying Israel wants each refugee to sign a specific statement insisting he has no right to return to the town of his birth, if it is claimed by Israel.
Syria is home to around 600,000 Palestinian refugees, many of them living in camps around Damascus. As those camps have erupted in rebel-backed fighting, many have fled into neighboring Lebanon, so far the only nation which appears willing to take them.
