On World Refugee Day, there is no celebration in Palestine, only grief, rage, and a renewed call for justice. For millions of Palestinians, this day does not symbolise international solidarity but instead marks another year of dispossession, exile, and violence endured in silence by much of the world.

In Gaza, where tents replace homes and graveyards outnumber schools, displacement has become a way of life, now compounded by genocide. The Israeli occupation has transformed refugee camps into killing fields, targeting shelters, aid convoys, and entire families in a calculated effort to erase not just people, but their right to return. What was once temporary exile is now a generational reality.

More than 5.9 million Palestinians are registered as refugees, with hundreds of thousands currently displaced once again by the war on Gaza. Many are now living under plastic sheets, without food, water, or the protection of law. Aid deliveries, instead of providing relief, often end in bloodshed as starving civilians are gunned down while trying to reach them.

The international community issues statements of concern, yet remains unwilling to confront the root cause: a decades-long occupation that sees Palestinian life as expendable and Palestinian rights as negotiable. Efforts to dismantle UNRWA and silence refugee voices are part of a broader campaign to bury the right of return.

But Palestinians are not surrendering their history. They still hold the keys to homes they were forced from in 1948. These are not relics of nostalgia but proof of a stolen future that must be reclaimed.

On this day, Palestinians do not ask for sympathy, they demand accountability. Because without justice for the refugee, peace will remain a myth, and without return, justice remains denied.