You are missing the point. These “refugees” live in a Palestinian city. There are now more “refugees” than there were originally.
How can the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, who were born in Palestinian cities, be refugees?
It’s akin to saying there are now 47.9 million slaves when the original 388,000 were freed back in the 1860’s.
EC
BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
Funds Appropriated To The President
international disaster assistance
For an additional amount for “International Disaster Assistance”, $5,655,000,000, to remain available until expended, to address humanitarian needs, including the provision of emergency food and shelter, of vulnerable populations and communities: Provided, That such amount is designated by the Congress as being for an emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
Department Of State
migration and refugee assistance
For an additional amount for “Migration and Refugee Assistance”, $3,495,000,000, to remain available until expended, to address humanitarian needs of vulnerable populations and communities: Provided, That such amount is designated by the Congress as being for an emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8034/text
Right now they live in Gaza. In a few months many will be living in Democratic congressional districts.
By the dictionary definition of ‘refugee’, you are correct.
By the fact of living in a area for refugees since birth, they got to be considered as refugees and have been so treated since birth.
The Biden administration will soon be chartering airplanes to bring many to the USA. Then they will be refugees by the dictionary definition too.
Same as African Americans or any two named peoples. Either you’re African (an example) or you’re American. If you’re American, you have to get a job and support your children. If you’re still claiming something else after hundreds of years then you can sit on the couch waiting for your welfare check/aid package and have baby mamas everywhere.
So I think you raised two issues here, one which you know the answer. According to UNRWA, all descendants of refugees are refugees. No other refugee group, other than the Palestinians, is afforded this special classification. Once a refugee is settled, their children and grandchildren and great great great grandchildren are not considered refugees. The only exception is for the Palestinians.
The other issue you raised had to do with where they are actually settled. This gets very complicated not least of which as you pointed out, many are living in Palestinian self-governing cities that have historically been Arab (Palestinian). They will claim they don’t have a state of their own and are at risk of being forced to leave so they are technically not free and settled; and they will claim that some of the people in Nablus and Ramallah etc are refugees from some place that is now inside Israel. Some of them live in what may have once been “camps”, but are now cities with multi story housing, plumbing, electricity etc. They are not (at least before Oct 7 in Gaza) in what one thinks of as a camp. So it’s a good question, if they live in Palestinian self ruled cities, why are they called Refugees? It’s definitely not very logical. The answer I think is that it’s political. It serves many purposes - the money and UNRWA and geopolitics and public relations wars etc. They have to be perpetual victims because that’s how they get the money.
But it gets even more complicated. Israel did not take these other territories until 1967. Before that the land was Jordan and Egypt. And when the Arab armies attacked Israel in 1948 they weren’t doing it to free the Palestinians they were doing it to take the land for themselves. And now you have Palestinians in Jordan, most of whom have citizenship. There are Palestinians in Israel, most of whom have Israeli citizenship (though some in Jerusalem refuse to take citizenship, they do have residency cards). But you also have Palestinians in Lebanon. Lebanon won’t give them citizenship, won’t let them go to college or get government jobs or get government contracts.
And of course there are Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. These are territories under Israeli military control but self rule by Palestinians. It is very tenuous at least in part because the Palestinians have never been able to organize themselves politically to negotiate a two state solution. There are many reasons for that including religion and ideology, but one of the reasons is the Palestinians in Lebanon for example would expect to be resettled into a new Palestinian state. People in Gaza would expect to be free to travel to Ramallah. The tribes and clans that run these regions don’t want that. Few people in the West Bank want to see 500,000 people from Lebanon and another 500,000 from Gaza up and move into the West Bank. So rather than deal with those issues, they will continue to take up arms - literally and figuratively- against Israel, accuse them of all sorts of crimes, make up historical myths that what is now a vibrant Israel was once a rich and culturally vibrant “Palestine”, which of course it never was. It was mostly barren land and if you go back over the centuries it was ruled over by various empires - the British (who carved up most of what is now the Middle East), the ottomans, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the romans. It has always been a region of conquest. In a “new world order” pressure has to be brought to bear on the Palestinians to get their own house in order because the path they have been on has not worked out well. They cannot be allowed to sacrifice more generations over this ethnic grudge, meaning, if they expect western aid they need to live up to western standards of conduct.