We, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), are honored to announce our participation in the Alternative Palestinian Path Conference مؤتمر المَسار الفلسطيني البديل taking place in Madrid, Spain in October 2021. As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Madrid Conference that initiated the Oslo process, the Alternative Palestinian Path Conference represents an opportunity for Palestinians to come together to express our commitment to the liberation of Palestine and to provide a framework that forwards our national liberation struggle. We call upon Palestinian organizations and institutions globally to join us in endorsing, promoting and participating in the conference.

At the end of June 2020, the Syrian regime’s Damascus governorate announced its plans to turn the remains of Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp into an urban neighborhood of privatized high-rise buildings to be placed for sale to the highest bidder. The execution of this plan would result in the permanent erasure of the camp, which is considered the capital of the Palestinian shataat due to its cultural and political significance in Palestinian resistance, identity in exile, and aspirations for return and freedom.

We, the undersigned Palestinian youth and student organizations, and with us the associations, organizations and institutions that have signed this statement, call on the masses of Palestinian youth and students throughout occupied Palestine and in exile to join us in a popular initiative for the advancement and initiation of national development for the restoration of the revolutionary democratic approach for a new stage of struggle. The core of this initiative is the objectives of our Palestinian people: return, liberation, and continuing struggle to achieve all of their legitimate national goals and aspirations, no matter how long it may take.

This global pandemic caused by COVID-19 poses a detrimental threat to our people in refugee camps globally, specifically in Lebanon. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon endure institutionalized discrimination, overcrowding, and mass unemployment. The refugee strikes in the camps of Lebanon in the year prior, which sparked country-wide protests, were a response to these conditions.