In Lebanon the Palestinians meet all the characteristics of a diaspora - the collective loss and trauma of being exile, the outrage over the injustice of dispossession and misrecognition, the idea of return and the concept and practice of resistance. The Shatila refugee camp was built in 1949 to receive the refugees from northern Palestine. Now there are about 12 000 Palestinians living in Shatila for two generations. From birth, the young are told that Lebanon is not their country and that they are Palestinians living in exile. During the Lebanese civil war, the camp was under siege by a massacre carried out by the Christian militia, ‘The Phalange’, in cooperation with the Israeli’s army which killed 3500 civilians, mostly women and children. There are many educated people within the Palestinian community but they are unable to work outside the camps. The Lebanese laws do not allow Palestinians to work or own land. The conditions of living inside the camp are constant hardship and this poses a threat to the preservation of their identity. With the Syrians crisis the population has doubled and the 1km square camp is now hosting 20 000 refugees and everyday life is a surrounded by wreckages of war and hopelessness. It is over half a century since the majority of Palestinian Arabs fled from the British Mandate territory of Palestine, a large part of which, after May 1948, became the state of Israel. Many sought what they imagined would be temporary refuge in neighbouring states, including Lebanon. But the months stretched into years and the years into decades, and still they wait to return home. Today few Palestinians in Lebanon have any direct experience of ‘home’. Instead, they have the memories of parents and grandparents, and a sense of somewhere that is rightfully theirs but has been unjustly denied to them. As the memories fade with time, so does hope. From generation to generation Palestinians lose their sense of identity. Unfortunately the youngest only have the camp to call home. This photo essay is in Memory of the Palestinians, a visual record of the traces left in Shatila - the time, the traumas and injustices. It is an encounter with their memories and their hope. This photo essay tries to erase the misrepresentation of Palestinians and instead try to draw a fair image of their humanity. I sincerely hope to educate the viewer of this book to understand the normality of their existence in hopes of relaying their struggle. I would like to invite the viewer through this photographic journey which chronicles their intimate space, and hopefully at the end, one can know what it means to be Palestinian in Shatila.