Syrian Civil War: Thousands Of Palestinians Killed In Ongoing Conflict

A new report shows the Syrian conflict has done much more than displace half of the country's population. As many as 3,031 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to a report published Monday by the Working Group for Palestinians in Syria, which called the deceased "victims of war."

The causes of death included bombing and shelling, armed clashes, detention camp treatment that includes torture or starvation, and also things like drowning while fleeing the area via boat. An estimated 1,688 Palestinians lost their lives in Syrian detention camps, while 1,274 were killed outside those camps, a number that includes torture victims and missing bodies.

Palestinian territory and Israeli territory both sit to the southwest of Syria, bordering it in part along the southwest edge. The Palestinian death toll is a relatively small number compared to the overall death toll since the civil war broke out in Syria following the March 2011 Arab Spring. The United Nations estimates that approximately 220,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Others have estimated the death toll to be much higher. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights declared in April that 310,000 people had been killed and that the number had doubled from just a year before.

Syria's death toll is not the only way that families and lives have been destroyed. There are 4.2 million registered Syrian refugees in countries outside of Syria, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. That number has risen quickly from the mid tens of thousands in January 2012.

Those refugees are being hosted in countries like nearby Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. Just 40 percent of the funds necessary to address the growing conflict have been made available, according to the UN. Those funding shortages mean that Syrians in Lebanon must survive on approximately $13.50 a month. An estimated 80 percent of Syrians in Jordan are living in poverty, according to Amnesty International.