Syria corrects ‘erroneous’ classification of Palestinians as foreigners amid shock

Syrian officials have blamed a "technical error" for the reclassification of Palestinian refugees resident in the country as "foreigners".

The "error" has been corrected, but Palestinians have reacted with anger, outrage, and shock amid continued uncertainty over their status in post-Assad Syria.

The Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), an NGO focused on the rights of Palestinians resident in Syria, said that the error was made amid broader changes to the data of Palestinian refugees in Syrian civil records.

These included the unification of the civil registry database of Palestinian refugees with the general Syrian one.

There are approximately 450,000 Palestinian refugee residents in Syria – the descendants of Palestinians who fled their country in 1948.

Palestinians in Syria previously had their records registered by the General Authority for Palestinian Arab Refugees, separately from the general Syrian population. However, Syrian authorities are now seeking to merge them, according to the AGPS.

The programme has resulted in changes to Palestinian residents, according to the AGPS, many of which have fuelled concern about the future status of Palestinians in Syria.

The "date of asylum" in Syria is no longer recorded and the Palestinians' original place of residence in their home country, prior to the 1948 Nakba, also no longer appears, being replaced by the generic term "Palestinian resident". Instead, the Syrian province in which they live is listed as their permanent residence.

On the social media platform X, the AGPS welcomed the Syrian government’s correction of its classification of Palestinians as "foreigners" and their reclassification as "Palestinian-Syrians", emphasising that Palestinians in Syria were integrated into Syrian society and had shared the sufferings of Syrians over 14 years of war.

It pointed out that nearly 5,000 Palestinians were killed by the previous regime of President Bashar al-Assad, while 7,237 had been detained, of whom 1305 had been detained.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria’s new authorities, led by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, came under US and Israeli pressure to act against Palestinian groups present in Syria.

Leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement and the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP-GC) were later arrested.