Palestinians, Lebanese 'forced out of UAE'

GAZA (The Peninsula Qatar): A number of Palestinians and Lebanese Shias have been forced to leave the United Arab Emirates in recent months, Palestinian and Lebanese officials said yesterday.

Hussam Ahmed, head of the Refugee Affairs Department in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, said hundreds of Palestinians had been dismissed from their jobs in the UAE for security reasons.

“(This is) an operation of mass displacement of Palestinians in the UAE, especially those of Gaza origins, without known reasons other than security pretexts,” he said in a statement issued in Gaza on Thursday, citing the UAE town of Al-Ain. He said many did not have passports, and Arab states would not accept them with the travel documents they had.

In Beirut, a senior Lebanese political source said 45 Lebanese Shias living in the UAE had either not been granted re-entry or had been asked to leave. No reason was given for the decisions.

“Some of them had been living in the country for 20 years. They were doctors and business owners,” the source said. Khairy Al Aridi, Palestinian Ambassador to the UAE, was quoted by the Ramallah-based official Palestinian news agency Wafa on Thursday as denying that there had been a deliberate policy of expulsion. “The charitable policy of the UAE towards Palestinians has not changed,” he said in newspaper comments.