Expulsion of Palestinians from Kuwait (1990–91)
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The Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War. There were approximately 357,000 Palestinians living in Kuwait before the country was invaded by neighbouring Iraq on 2 August 1990. At an emergency summit in Cairo on August 10, twenty Arab League countries drafted a final statement that condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and supported the United Nations resolutions. Twelve Arab states supported the use of force, and the remaining eight, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), rejected a military solution to the Iraqi invasion. According to The Washington Post, classified US reports indicated that the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, pressed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to make his withdrawal from Kuwait conditional on the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, and on August 12, Saddam announced his offer to withdraw conditionally. The Kuwaiti government policy which led to this expulsion was a response to the position taken by the PLO.
Operation Desert Storm saw Iraqi forces defeated and pushed out of Kuwait by a coalition led by the United States. More than 287,000 Palestinians were forced by the government to leave Kuwait in March 1991 amid fear of abuse by the Kuwait Armed Forces. Most of the fleeing Palestinians went to Jordan, and limited numbers ended up in Iraq, Israel, the United States, Australia and Canada.
In 2004, relations between the Palestinian leadership and Kuwait improved following an official apology by the PLO leader, Mahmoud Abbas, for the PLO's support of the Iraqi occupation. In 2012, the Palestinian embassy in Kuwait was reopened, and some 80,000 Palestinians lived in the state.