More than fifty years after the establishment of the State of Israel, almost four million Palestinian refugees are still waiting to return to their old homeland, most of them living under harsh conditions in overcrowded camps in the Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East. It is a wait that has now been passed on to a fourth generation. Between 1999 and 2002, Swedish photographer Mia Gröndahl visited most of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, documenting through a remarkable series of intimate, direct, and powerfully honest images the lives of a people making the best of a ‘temporary’ existence that has lasted over half a century, a people whose lives have been put on hold but who still have not given up the hope that one day the world will listen to them and recognize their right to return.

Mia Gröndahl is a Swedish journalist and photographer who has been based in the Middle East since 1996. After five years in East Jerusalem, she is now living in Cairo. During her years in the Middle East she has documented the lives of the Palestinians in numerous exhibitions and books. Some of the photographs in this book were included in her exhibition ‘’UNRWA and the Palestinian Refugees: 50 Years,’’ which was inaugurated by Secretary General Kofi Annan at the UN headquarters in New York. Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian peace activist, academic, and defender of democracy and human rights. She earned her PhD in medieval literature from the University of Virginia and later became dean of the Faculty of Arts at Birzeit University. She was the official spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation during the Oslo peace talks, and in 1994 she founded the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights. From 1996 to 1998 she was minister for higher education and research. Currently, Dr. Ashrawi is an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and founder and secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy—MIFTAH. Brief version for catalog: Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian peace activist, academic, and defender of democracy and human rights. She is an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and founder and secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy—MIFTAH. Peter Hansen is the general commissioner of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.