Refugees Chap10

The Nakba
Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees

Palestinian Refugees: Facts & Figures
Responsibility for the Palestinian Refugee
Problem
10. Refugees
An elderly Palestinian refugee holds his old ID card in the Shatila refugee camp in the southern suburbs of Beirut
10.1 The Nakba

While Israelis look back at May 15th, 1948 as a day of independence and take their celebrations
to the streets, Palestinians look back at that very same day and see an entirely different story. 65
years ago, over 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes and most of their possessions, their land
and their businesses, and watched as their towns and villages were erased off the map by Israeli
forces. Jewish militias seeking to create a state with a Jewish majority in Palestine, and later,
the Israeli army, drove out nearly a million Palestinians and moved Jews into the newly-emptied
Palestinian homes. Al-Nakba, or The Catastrophe, will be remembered by Palestinians as the
day their society was destroyed and their homeland was taken over, creating the refugee crisis
that persists today.
10.2 Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees

All refugees have a right to return to areas from which they have fled or were forced,
to receive compensation for damages, and to either regain their properties or receive
compensation and support for voluntary resettlement. This right derives from a number
of legal sources, including customary international law, international humanitarian law
governing rights of civilians during war, and human rights law. The United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 13(2) that "[e]veryone has the
right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his own country." This is an
individual right and cannot be unilaterally abrogated by third parties.1
In December 1948, following Israels establishment and the attendant displacement of
approximately 750,000 Palestinians from areas that fell within its control, the UN General
Assembly passed Resolution 194, which states,
"[R]efugees 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 of those choosing not to return and for loss
1 See
the Declaration: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Chapter 10. Refugees
52
of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity,

should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." 2
The Palestinian right of return has been confirmed repeatedly by the UN General Assembly,
including through Resolution 3236, which "Reaffirms also the inalienable right of the
Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced
and uprooted, and calls for their return."
The Palestinian right of return has also been recognized by major human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, which issued a policy statement on the subject in
2001. It concluded:
Amnesty International calls for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel,
the West Bank or Gaza Strip, along with those of their descendants who have
maintained genuine links with the area, to be able to exercise their right to return.
Palestinians who were expelled from what is now Israel, and then from the West
Bank or Gaza Strip, may be able to show that they have genuine links to both places.
If so, they should be free to choose between returning to Israel, the West Bank or
Gaza Strip.
Palestinians who have genuine links to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza Strip, but
who are currently living in other host states, may also have genuine links to their
host state. This should not diminish or reduce their right to return to Israel, the West
Bank or Gaza Strip. 3
According to a statement issued by Human Rights Watch in 2000:
HRW urges Israel to recognize the right to return for those Palestinians, and their
descendants, who fled from territory that is now within the State of Israel, and who
have maintained appropriate links with that territory. This is a right that persists
even when sovereignty over the territory is contested or has changed hands. 4
The U.S. government supported Resolution 194, and consistently voted to affirm it until
1993, when the administration of President Bill Clinton began to refer to Palestinian
refugee rights as a matter to be negotiated between the two parties in a final peace
agreement. In recent years, the U.S. has supported the right of refugees to return to places
like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and East Timor.
10.2.1 Palestinian Refugees: Facts & Figures
Palestinian refugees are the largest and longest-standing population of displaced persons
in the world. Reliable figures on their numbers are hard to find, as there is no centralized
agency or institution charged with maintaining this information. However, a survey
released in 2010 by BADIL, the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee
Rights, found the refugee and displaced population to be at least 7.1 million, made up of
6.6 million refugees and 427,000 internally displaced persons. It also found that refugees
comprised 67% of the Palestinian population as a whole. 5
Most Palestinian refugees are Palestinians and their descendants who were expelled from
their homes in the parts of historic Palestine that were incorporated into the newly created
2 See
the Resolution: http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/013/2001/en/3cdb18f4-db6e-11dd-af3c1fd4bb8cf58e/mde150132001en.pdf
4 See: http://www.hrw.org/news/2000/12/21/human-rights-watch-urges-attention-future-palestinian-refugees
5 See BADIL: http://www.badil.org/
3 See:
10.2 Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees
53
state of Israel in 1948. Other Palestinian refugee categories include Palestinians who
fled their homes but remained internally displaced in areas that became Israel in 1948;
Palestinians who were displaced for the first time after Israel occupied the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 War; Palestinians who left the occupied territories
since 1967 and have been prevented by Israel from returning due to revocation of residency
rights, denial of family reunification, or deportation; and Palestinians internally displaced
in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 1967.
Most Palestinian refugees live in camps in the occupied territories and neighboring Arab
countries, with 1.9 million in Jordan, 1.1 million in Gaza, some 779,000 in the West Bank,
427,000 in Syria, and 425,000 in Lebanon. Throughout the region, many Palestinians rely
on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(UNRWA) to survive.
10.2.2 Responsibility for the Palestinian Refugee Problem
Palestinians flee Jaffa by boat during the Nakba.
During the creation of Israel (1947-9), approximately 750,000 Palestinians were expelled
by Zionist militias and Israeli government forces seeking to create a Jewish-majority
state in historic Palestine, where the indigenous Palestinian Arab population was the
overwhelming majority (approximately 67% in 1947). Palestinians call this the "Nakba,"
Arabic for "catastrophe" or "disaster." 6
By the time of the declaration of the state of Israel in May 1948 and the entry of neighboring
Arab countries into the conflict, more than 200 Palestinian towns had already been emptied
as people fled in fear or were driven out by Zionist paramilitaries.
By the end of 1948, some three-quarters of the Palestinian Arab population had been
expelled. Its estimated that more than half were driven out under direct military assault.
Others fled as news spread of massacres committed by Zionist forces in Palestinian cities
and towns such as Deir Yassin, Ad Dawayima, Eilaboun, Saliha, and Lydda.
More than 400 Palestinian cities and towns would be systematically destroyed by Zionist
and Israeli forces. In dwellings that werent destroyed, Israel rapidly moved Jews, many of
them recently arrived immigrants from Europe, into the newly emptied Palestinian homes.
6 See:
http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/20100118141933.pdf

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The Nakba

Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees

10.1 The Nakba

10.2 Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees

the Declaration: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Chapter 10. Refugees

of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity,

the Resolution: http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/c758572b78d1cd0085256bcf0077e51a?OpenDocument

10.2 Facts about The Right of Return & Palestinian Refugees

Palestinians flee Jaffa by boat during the Nakba.

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