“We did not choose to be refugees; that was something imposed on us by force and terror. We have the right to personal security, to our homes, and to our land and to freedom. We do not intend, nor do we accept, remaining refugees forever. We do not accept that our children continue to be refugees.” - A refugee from Deheisha Refugee Camp.

The majority of Palestinians are refugees. In the Occupied Territories of 1967 and the countries bordering on them alone, UNRWA listed over 4 million refugees in 2003, which is the largest refugee population in the world. Of these, over 32% live in the 59 refugee camps scattered across the Middle East.

UNRWA defines the Palestinian refugees in this way: “To qualify for UNRWA registration, refugees must have been resident in Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and to have lost both their homes and their livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The descendants of 1948 refugees are also eligible for registration with UNRWA, but only refugees living in its five fields of operations (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza Strip) are eligible for the Agency‘s services.”

The figures, based on this minimal definition by UNRWA of a refugee, represent far less than the real number of Palestinian refugees. Several categories of refugees, nonetheless, are omitted by this definition: those who are refugees in countries outside UNRWA‘s mission, such as Egypt and Iraq; those Palestinians who were outside Palestine in 1948; those refugees who were not registered by UNRWA; internally displaced refugees inside Israel (more than 300,000 people); those made refugee by the 1967 war - approximately 300,000 in only six days; those expelled after 1967.

The Nakba

Palestinian refugees were created by two waves of expulsions: the first in 1948, the second in 1967. In 1948, over 800,000 Palestinians fled from their towns and villages following the policy of terror conducted by Zionist organisations. Initially, villagers and city dwellers did not take refuge far away, taking with them only a minimal means of subsistence and the key to their house. No Palestinian imagined that he was leaving his home for good. They had already lived through the same situation during the Anglo-Turkish battles in 1916-1917; when the danger and fighting was over, everyone had returned home. However, the hope for the arrival of Arab troops was in vain. The collusion of King Abdullah of Transjordan with the Zionists, aggravated by the military weakness of the Palestinian resistance, allowed their land to be taken from them. Until the early 1950s, some refugees tried to cross back and return to their villages or neighbourhoods, through unsecured borders, if only to retrieve some of the belongings they had left behind. Thousands were killed in such attempts, and any return very soon became impossible.

The State of Israel demolished over 400 towns or villages, whether partially or completely. In the towns, the residences were immediately reoccupied by the Jewish new immigrants. Between 1949 and 1953, the State of Israel regularised these expropriations, in defiance of all international law, by enacting the Absentee Property Law (1950) (the refugees being the “absentees”), which denied Palestinians who had fled the right to return or to claim restitution of their property. Parallel to this law was the Law of Return (aliya in Hebrew) (1950), guaranteeing every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel. The Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law on land acquisition stipulated that land once belonging to a Jew could never be sold to an Arab.

The Naksa

In 1967 the same policy of mass transfer of Palestinians was repeated. Palestinians call it the Naksa (Tragedy). In less than 6 days, some 300,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were forced to leave their homes. One third had already been refugees since 1948; the other two thirds became refugees for the first time. Since these two mass transfers, the repression, demolition of houses and colonization of land have not ceased.

International Law concerning the Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees

I. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 : “Article 11. “[The General Assembly] resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.”

II. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948) (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

III. The Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) affirms the right of return of all those who have been chased from their land because of the outbreak of war.

IV. Resolution 3236 of the UN General Assembly (1974) affirms the right of the Palestinians to selfdetermination, national independence and sovereignty, and the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their houses and their lands. International laws that guarantee the Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees