Cut off from civilization, a dirty sea of tents sprawls out across the five kilometre stretch of no-man's land between the Syrian-Iraqi borders. Here, at al-Tanf camp, ruthless sandstorms sweep across the scorpion-infested desert plains, whilst temperatures soar into the fifties in summer and plummet into the minuses in winter.
Bleak and hostile, al-Tanf has been home for the past three years to hundreds of Palestinian refugees -- close to half of them children -- who fled persecution in Iraq. Stranded in no-man's land following Syria's refusal to grant them asylum because of their Palestinian identity, the refugees have been left waiting for news of resettlement amidst Hamas-led ideological opposition to the issue.
"How can people just leave us here for so long and pretend we don't exist?" asks Ahmed al-Rifa'i. "It's like being a caged animal. Get us out, I want to live again."
Mr Rifa'i's family fled Iraq in late 2006 after his father's body was found brutally mutilated with a knife to the chest in a back street of Baghdad. The death threats which for weeks had been pushed under Mr Rifai's door and plastered around his neighbourhood were finally being carried out. The last one read: "You must leave because Iraq is only for Iraqis."
Persecuted by Shiite militias because of their ties to Saddam Hussein's regime which publically defended their cause, the Palestinians have been afforded little protection by US troops inside Iraq and Mr Maliki's government. An estimated 20,000 Palestinians have fled the country since 2003, some using fake passports because they thought their Palestinian identity cards might block asylum.
Their suspicions were right. When Mr Rifa'i's family reached the Syrian border, they were turned away. While some 1.2 million Iraqi citizens flooded into the country, the Palestinians were refused entry and with nowhere to turn, left stranded in no-man's land.
It is an unusual policy of Syria's pan-Arab Ba'athist government to block Palestinian refugees from entering the country. Syria has long been one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause in the region, taking in some 90,000 following the creation of Israel in 1948, a number which has grown to a population of half a million today. Palestinians living in Syria are also largely granted the same working and civil rights as nationals.
Syria's refusal to grant asylum to al-Tanf's Palestinians is a policy which draws the line at how many refugees the country can be expected to host, Mohammad Habbash, Syrian MP and vice-president for the Syrian-Palestinian society for the right to return, says.
Since October 2007, al-Tanf has grown in numbers from 350 to almost 1,000. The new arrivals have come from Syria. Some were deported by Syrian security forces once it was discovered they held false Iraqi documents and some came to the camp voluntarily with the hope of being resettled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to a third country.
Two children were killed last year by trucks on the Baghdad to Damascus highway which runs parallel to the camp. Fires regularly break out: last month a pregnant woman was burnt to death inside her tent. Another man died of kidney failure after not making it to the hospital in Syria in time to receive dialysis.
"We pray to God that he will pull us out of this hell hole," Mr Rifa'i said. "But it just continues to expand."
Mr Habbash defends the deportations as the legitimate right of any country. "As a principle, if the Syrian government finds anyone with illegal papers, they cannot stay inside the borders, whatever their nationality," he said.
Hamas has maintained a silent presence at al-Tanf alongside the UN since the first few refugees arrived, bringing weekly deliveries of everything from fresh vegetables, meat, clothes and blankets to cash and televisions. While Hamas' Damascus-based leadership has asked the Syrian government to take in al-Tanf's refugees, its refusal to do so is a position the faction understands.
"Syria worries that if it allows al-Tanf's Palestinians into the country then it will open the flood gates to all of our people living in abysmal conditions across the region, Talal Nasser, public relations director of Hamas, says. "The Palestinians living in Syria get treated very well. Consequently, Syria has to take advanced steps to keep people from swarming in."
That said, the Syrian government made an exception to its rule in September 2006 when it allowed 286 Palestinians from Iraq stranded between the Jordanian-Iraqi borders to set up camp at al-Hol in the north eastern province of Hassakah. Syria was the only country to respond to the UNHCR's pleas for the refugees.
Mr Habbash rejects the notion however, that Syria should shoulder the responsibility for al-Tanf's refugees. "The Syrian government views the issue in two ways," he said. "Either these Palestinians should be able to move to the West Bank or Gaza, or else the US, which created the problem in the fist place, should provide secure shelter in Iraq until it is safe to return to their lands in Palestine."
The resettlement of al-Tanf's 850 refugees is a thorny issue. As a principle, Hamas condemns the resettlement of Palestinians to any third country, viewing it as incompatible with upholding the right of return and abandoning the struggle for a future Palestinian state. As a consequence, the faction condemns UNHCR's resettlement of a small handful of al-Tanf's refugees to Sweden, Switzerland and Chile last year.
"We know that the refugees in Tanf are living in harsh conditions," Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy leader of Hamas, says. "But we are also not happy to see them being moved to European countries which they will integrate into and consequently see them lose the right of return."
Hamas' solution for al-Tanf's refugees is to take them to Gaza. It accuses Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) of obstructing the process by agreeing to the resettlement of the refugees to a third country and giving up on the right of return. "If the PA was serious about the right to return, they would talk to the Egyptian government and persuade them to allow al-Tanf's refugees into the country so that they can cross into Gaza rather than Europe," Mr Nasser says.
The UNHCR disagrees with opposition to resettling al-Tanf's Palestinians in a third country. "Our first preference is for the Palestinians to be able to return home, but they also deserve a better future than being stranded between border posts," Sybella Wilkes, regional spokesperson for UNHCR in Damascus, says. "We don't see relocating them to a safe environment as taking their right to return away."
Ms Wilkes added that UNHCR is in ongoing discussions with Sudan and Western countries about the resettlement of al-Tanf's refugees. She also refutes allegations that the Syrian government, due to its support for Hamas and the right to return, is obstructing the relocation process. "Our biggest challenge is managing to get countries to open their borders to the refugees," she says.
Hamas, meanwhile, has opened its own back channels of talks with Arab states on the issue. "If they can't move to Gaza, we would rather see the refugees relocated in Arab countries than the West, where they can keep their identities," Mr Nasser says. "But we're sad to see the Europeans opening their borders, while the Arabs refuse."
Mr Nasser said Qatar, Sudan and Yemen were all on the cards as potential hosts in Hamas' discussions, with the faction even offering to build the accommodation if the refugees are accepted. Ms Wilkes said UNHCR would welcome the proposals of Yemen and Qatar if they stepped up to the cause, but added the refugees also have a say in their choice of relocation.
"On the rare occasion that the UN announces a country has opened up its borders to some of us, I pray our names will be on that list," Mr Rifa'i says. "But as the years pass, I'm beginning to lose hope of that ever happening."