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Palestinian refugees

January 15, 2023

Further information: Definitions of Palestinian and History of Palestinian nationality

Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodus). Most Palestinian refugees live in or near 68 Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 2019 more than 5.6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations.

Clickable map of the more than 400 depopulated towns and villages of the 1948 Palestinian exodus (red) and the c.60 modern day Palestinian refugee camps (blue)

In 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) defined Palestinian refugees to refer to the original "Palestine refugees" as well as their patrilineal descendants. However, UNRWA's assistance is limited to Palestine refugees residing in UNRWA's areas of operation in the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.[1][2]

As of 2019, more than 5.6 million Palestinians were registered with UNRWA as refugees,[3] of which more than 1.5 million live in UNRWA-run camps.[4] The term "Palestine refugee" does not include internally displaced Palestinians, who became Israeli citizens, or displaced Palestinian Jews. According to some estimates, as many as 1,050,000–1,380,000[5] people, who descend from displaced people of Mandatory Palestine are not registered under UNRWA or UNHCR mandates.

During the 1948 Palestine War, around 700,000[fn 1] Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population in what became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes, to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and to the countries of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.[6] They, and their descendants who are also entitled to registration, are assisted by UNWRA in 59 registered camps, ten of which were established in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967 to cope with the new wave of displaced Palestinians.[7] They are also the world's oldest unsettled refugee population, having been under the ongoing governance of Arab states following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the refugee populations of the West Bank under Israeli governance since the Six-Day War and Palestinian administration since 1994, and the Gaza Strip administered by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) since 2007.

Today, the largest number of refugees, over 2,000,000, live in Jordan, where by 2009 over 90% of UNWRA-registered Palestinian refugees had acquired full citizenship rights. This figure consists almost exclusively of West Bank-descended Palestinians;[a]; however, as of December 2021, Palestinians with roots in the Gaza Strip are also still kept in legal limbo. In 2021, Jordanian politician Jawad Anani estimated that roughly 50% of Jordan's population had West Bank-Palestinian roots.[b][8][9][10][11] Another approximately 2,000,000 refugees live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under Israeli occupation and blockade. Approximately 500,000 refugees live in each of Syria and Lebanon respectively, albeit under very different circumstances. While Palestinian refugees in Syria maintained their stateless status, the Syrian government afforded them the same economic and social rights enjoyed by Syrian citizens;[12] they are also drafted into the Armed Forces despite not being citizens.[13][14] Citizenship or legal residency in some host countries is denied, most notably for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, where the absorption of Palestinians would upset a delicate confessional balance. For the refugees themselves, these situations mean they have reduced rights: no right to vote, limited property rights and access to social services, among other things.

On 11 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) adopted Resolution 194 which affirmed the Palestinians right to return to their homes.[15][16]

Definitions

UNRWA

 
Palestinian refugees in Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, 1956.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is an organ of the United Nations created exclusively for the purpose of aiding those displaced by the Arab–Israeli conflict, with an annual budget of approximately $600 million.[17] It defines a "Palestine refugee" as a person "whose normal place of residence was Mandatory Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli conflict".[18] The Six-Day War of 1967 generated a new wave of Palestinian refugees who could not be included in the original UNRWA definition. From 1991, the UN General Assembly has adopted an annual resolution allowing the 1967 refugees within the UNRWA mandate.[19] UNRWA aids all "those living in its area of operations who meet its working definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance"[20] and those who first became refugees as a result of the Six-Day War, regardless whether they reside in areas designated as Palestine refugee camps or in other permanent communities.

A Palestine refugee camp is "a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and to set up facilities to cater to their needs".[21] About 1.4 million of registered Palestine refugees, approximately one-third, live in the 58 UNRWA-recognised refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.[22] The UNRWA definition does not cover final status.[22][23]

Registered descendants of UNRWA Palestine refugees, like "Nansen passport" and "Certificate of Eligibility" holders (the documents issued to those displaced by World War II) or like UNHCR refugees,[24] inherit the same Palestine refugee status as their male parent. According to UNRWA, "The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including adopted children, are also eligible for registration."[25]

The UNHCR had counted 90,000 refugees by 2014.[26]

Palestinian definitions

Palestinians make several distinctions relating to Palestinian refugees. The 1948 refugees and their descendants are broadly defined as "refugees" (laji'un). The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), especially those who have returned and form part of the PNA, but also Palestinian refugee camp residents in Lebanon, repudiate this term, since it implies being a passive victim, and prefer the autonym of 'returnees' (a'idun).[27] Those who left since 1967, and their descendants, are called nazihun or "displaced persons", though many may also descend from the 1948 group.[28]

Origin of the Palestine refugees

 
1948 Palestinian exodus – Palestine refugees making their way from Galilee in October–November 1948

Most Palestinian refugees have retained their refugee status and continue to reside in refugee camps, including within the State of Palestine in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Their descendants form a sizable portion of the Palestinian diaspora.

Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Palestine War

Main articles: 1948 Palestinian exodus, Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, and Palestinian Exodus 1949 to 1956

During the 1948 Palestine War, some 700,000[6][fn 1] Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the Palestinian Arab population of territories that became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes.[6] Some 30,000[29] to 50,000[citation needed] were alive by 2012.

The causes and responsibilities of the exodus are a matter of controversy among historians and commentators of the conflict.[30] While historians agree on most of the events of the period, there remains disagreement as to whether the exodus was the result of a plan designed before or during the war or was an unintended consequence of the war.[31] According to historian Benny Morris, the expulsion was planned and encouraged by the Zionist leadership.[32]

According to Morris, between December 1947 and March 1948, around 100,000 Palestine Arabs fled. Among them were many from the higher and middle classes from the cities, who left voluntarily, expecting to return when the Arab states won the war and took control of the country.[33] When the Haganah and then the emerging Israeli army (Israel Defense Forces or IDF) went on the defensive, between April and July, a further 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian Arabs left or were expelled, mainly from the towns of Haifa, Tiberias, Beit-Shean, Safed, Jaffa and Acre, which lost more than 90 percent of their Arab inhabitants.[34] Expulsions took place in many towns and villages, particularly along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road[35] and in Eastern Galilee.[36] About 50,000–70,000 inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle were expelled towards Ramallah by the IDF during Operation Danny,[37] and most others during operations of the IDF in its rear areas.[38] During Operation Dekel, the Arabs of Nazareth and South Galilee were allowed to remain in their homes.[39] Today they form the core of the Arab Israeli population. From October to November 1948, the IDF launched Operation Yoav to remove Egyptian forces from the Negev and Operation Hiram to remove the Arab Liberation Army from North Galilee during which at least nine events named massacres of Arabs were carried out by IDF soldiers.[40] These events generated an exodus of 200,000 to 220,000 Palestinian Arabs. Here, Arabs fled fearing atrocities or were expelled if they had not fled.[41] After the war, from 1948 to 1950, the IDF resettled around 30,000 to 40,000 Arabs from the borderlands of the new Israeli state.[42]

Palestinian refugees from Six-Day War

Main article: 1967 Palestinian exodus

As a result of the Six-Day War, around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled[43] from the territories won in the Six-Day War by Israel, including the demolished Palestinian villages of Imwas, Yalo, Bayt Nuba, Surit, Beit Awwa, Beit Mirsem, Shuyukh, Jiftlik, Agarith and Huseirat, and the "emptying" of the refugee camps of Aqabat Jabr and Ein as-Sultan.[44][45]

Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (Gulf War)

Main article: Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (Gulf War)

The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War. During the Gulf War, more than 200,000 Palestinians voluntarily fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait due to harassment and intimidation by Iraqi security forces,[46] in addition to getting fired from work by Iraqi authority figures in Kuwait.[46] After the Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait in 1991.[46] Kuwait's policy, which led to this exodus, was a response to alignment of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with the dictator Saddam Hussein, who had earlier invaded Kuwait.

Prior to the Gulf War, Palestinians numbered 400,000 out of Kuwait's population of 2.2 million.[47] The Palestinians who fled Kuwait were Jordanian citizens.[48] In 2013, there were 280,000 Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin in Kuwait.[49] In 2012, 80,000 Palestinians (without Jordanian citizenship) lived in Kuwait.[50] In total, there are 360,000 Palestinians in Kuwait as of 2012–2013.

Palestinian refugees as part of the Syrian refugee crisis

Main article: Refugees of the Syrian Civil War

Many Syrian Palestinians were displaced as a result of the Syrian Civil War starting in 2011. By October 2013, 235,000 Palestinians had been displaced within Syria itself, and 60,000 (alongside 2.2 million Syrians) had fled the country.[51] By March 2019, the UHCR estimated that 120,000 Palestine refugees had fled Syria since 2011, primarily to Lebanon and Jordan, but also Turkey and further afield.[52]

There were reports that Jordan and Lebanon have turned away Palestinian refugees attempting to flee the humanitarian crises in Syria.[citation needed] By 2013, Jordan had absorbed 126,000 Syrian refugees, but Palestinians fleeing Syria are placed in a separate refugee camp, under stricter conditions and are banned from entering Jordanian cities.[53]

Palestinian refugees from Syria are also immigrating to Europe seeking asylum, especially to Sweden, which has offered asylum to any Syrian refugees that manage to reach its territory, albeit with some conditions. Many do so by finding their way to Egypt and making the journey by sea. In October 2013, the PFLP-GC claimed that some 23,000 Palestinian refugees from the Yarmouk Camp had immigrated to Sweden alone.[54]

Refugee statistics

Further information: Palestinian refugee camps
 
Destroyed house in the Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza–Israel conflict, December 2012

The number of Palestine refugees varies depending on the source. For 1948–49 refugees, for example, the Israeli government suggests a number as low as 520,000 as opposed to 850,000 by their Palestinian counterparts.[citation needed] As of January 2015, UNRWA cites 5,149,742 registered refugees in total, of whom 1,603,018 are registered in camps.[55]

District Number of depopulated villages Number of refugees in 1948 Number of refugees in 2000
Beersheba 88 90,507 590,231
Beisan 31 19,602 127,832
Jenin 6 4,005 26,118
Haifa 59 121,196 790,365
Hebron 16 22,991 149,933
Ramle 64 97,405 635,215
Safad 78 52,248 340,729
Tiberias 26 28,872 188,285
Tulkarm 18 11,032 71,944
Acre 30 47,038 306,753
Gaza 46 79,947 521,360
Jerusalem 39 97,950 638,769
Nazareth 5 8,746 57,036
Jaffa 25 123,227 803,610
Total 531 804,766 5,248,185
Demography of Palestine[56]

The number of UNRWA registered Palestine refugees by country or territory in January 2015 were as follows:[55]

  Jordan 2,117,361
  Gaza Strip 1,276,929
  West Bank 774,167
  Syria 528,616
  Lebanon 452,669
Total 5,149,742
 
Pardes Hana Immigrant Camp of Jewish refugees, 1956.

In the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Jewish refugees were initially resettled in refugee camps known variously as Immigrant camps, Ma'abarot, and "development towns" prior to absorption into mainstream Israeli society. Conversely, many Palestinian refugees remain settled in Palestinian refugee camps, while others have been absorbed into Jordanian society or the Palestinian territories. Since 1948, the sovereign State of Israel has guaranteed asylum and citizenship to Jewish refugees, while the self-declared State of Palestine remains unable to absorb the Palestinian refugees, due to lack of de facto sovereignty over its claimed territories.[citation needed][dubious – discuss]

Gaza Strip

 
2018 Gaza border protests, Bureij refugee camp in Gaza

As of January 2015, the Gaza Strip has 8 UNRWA refugee camps with 560,964 Palestinian refugees, and 1,276,929 registered refugees in total,[55] out of a population of 1,816,379.[citation needed]

West Bank

As of January 2015, the West Bank has 19 UNRWA refugee camps with 228,560 Palestinian refugees, and 774,167 registered refugees in total,[55] out of a population of 2,345,107.[citation needed]

Jordan

See also: Palestinians in Jordan

"More than 2 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan. Most Palestine refugees in Jordan, but not all, have full citizenship",[57] following Jordan's annexation and occupation of the West Bank. The percentage of Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps to those who settled outside the camps is the lowest of all UNRWA fields of operations. Palestine refugees are allowed access to public services and healthcare, as a result, refugee camps are becoming more like poor city suburbs than refugee camps. Most Palestine refugees moved out of the camps to other parts of the country and the number of people registered in refugee camps as of January 2015 is 385,418, who live in ten refugee camps.[55] This caused UNRWA to reduce the budget allocated to Palestine refugee camps in Jordan. Former UNRWA chief-attorney James G. Lindsay wrote in 2009: "In Jordan, where 2 million Palestinian refugees live, all but 167,000 have citizenship, and are fully eligible for government services including education and health care." Lindsay suggests that eliminating services to refugees whose needs are subsidized by Jordan "would reduce the refugee list by 40%".[58][9]

Palestinians who moved from the West Bank (whether refugees or not) to Jordan, are issued yellow-ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the "official 10 refugee camps" in Jordan. From 1988 to 2012, thousands of those yellow-ID card Palestinians had their Jordanian citizenship revoked. Human Rights Watch estimated that about 2,700 Palestinians were stripped of Jordanian nationality between 2004 and 2008.[59] In 2012, the Jordanian government promised to stop revoking the citizenship of some Palestinians, and restored citizenship to 4,500 Palestinians who had previously lost it.[60]

Lebanon

See also: Palestinians in Lebanon, Karantina massacre, Tel al-Zaatar massacre, and Sabra and Shatila massacre
 
Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut in May 2019
 
Entrance to the Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp in southern Beirut

100,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon because of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and were not allowed to return.[61] As of January 2015, there were 452,669 registered refugees in Lebanon.[55]

In a 2007 study, Amnesty International denounced the "appalling social and economic condition" of Palestinians in Lebanon.[61] Until 2005, Palestinians were forbidden to work in over 70 jobs because they do not have Lebanese citizenship, but this was later reduced to around 20 as of 2007 after liberalization laws.[61] In 2010, Palestinians were granted the same rights to work as other foreigners in the country.[62]

Lebanon gave citizenship to about 50,000 Christian Palestinian refugees during the 1950s and 1960s. In the mid-1990s, about 60,000 Shiite Muslim refugees were granted citizenship. This caused a protest from Maronite authorities, leading to citizenship being given to all Christian refugees who were not already citizens.[63]

In the 2010s, many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon began immigrating to Europe, both legally and illegally, as part of the European migrant crisis, due to a deterioration in living conditions there as part of the Syrian civil war. In December 2015, sources told Al Jazeera that thousands of Palestinians were fleeing to Europe by way of Turkey, with about 4,000 having fled the Ain al-Hilweh camp alone in recent months. Many were reaching Germany, with others going to Russia, Sweden, Belgium, and Norway.[64] A census completed in January 2018 found that only around 175,000 Palestinian refugees were living in Lebanon, as opposed to previous UNRWA figures which put the number at between 400,000 and 500,000, as well as other estimates that placed the number between 260,000 and 280,000. [65][66]

According to writer and researcher Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage, the media chose to deliberately ignore the conditions of the Palestinians living in Lebanese refugee camps, and that the "tendency to blame Israel for everything" has provided Arab leaders with an excuse to deliberately ignore the human rights of the Palestinian in their countries.[67]

Syria

See also: Palestinians in Syria

Syria had 528,616 registered Palestinian refugees in January 2015. There were 9 UNRWA refugee camps with 178,666 official Palestinian refugees.[55]

As a result of the Syrian civil war, large numbers of Palestinian refugees fled Syria to Europe as part of the European migrant crisis, and to other Arab countries. In September 2015, a Palestinian official said that only 200,000 Palestinian refugees were left in Syria, with 100,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria in Europe and the remainder in other Arab countries.[68]

Saudi Arabia

An estimated 240,000 Palestinians are living in Saudi Arabia. Palestinians are the sole foreign group that cannot benefit from a 2004 law passed by Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers, which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship.[69][70]

Iraq

Main article: Palestinians in Iraq

There were 34,000 Palestinian refugees living in Iraq prior to the Iraq War. In the aftermath of the war, the majority fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria, or were killed.[citation needed] Thousands lived as internally displaced persons within Iraq or were stranded in camps along Iraq's borders with Jordan and Syria, as no country in the region would accept them, and lived in temporary camps along the no man's land in the border zones.

Other countries

India agreed to take in 165 refugees, with the first group arriving in March 2006. Generally, they were unable to find work in India as they spoke only Arabic though some found employment with UNHCR's non-governmental partners. All of them were provided with free access to public hospitals. Of the 165 refugees, 137 of them later found clearance for resettlement in Sweden.[71] In November 2006, 54 were granted asylum in Canada, and in 2007, some 200 were accepted for resettlement in Sweden and Iceland, and Brazil agreed to take 100.[72][73]

In 2009, significant numbers of these refugees were allowed to resettle abroad. More than 1,000 were accepted by various countries in Europe and South America, and an additional 1,350 were cleared for resettlement in the United States.[74][75] Another 68 were allowed to resettle in Australia.[76] However, the majority of Palestine refugees strongly oppose resettlement and much rather want to return.[77]

Positions

Main article: Palestinian right of return

On 11 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly discussed Bernadotte's report and passed a resolution: "that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbour should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.[78] " This General Assembly article 11 of Resolution 194 has been annually re-affirmed.[15][79]

Israeli views

The Jewish Agency promised to the UN before 1948 that Palestinian Arabs would become full citizens of the State of Israel,[80] and the Israeli declaration of independence invited the Arab inhabitants of Israel to "full and equal citizenship".[81] In practice, Israel does not grant citizenship to the refugees, as it does to those Arabs who continue to reside in its borders. The 1947 Partition Plan determined citizenship based on residency, such that Arabs and Jews residing in Palestine but not in Jerusalem would obtain citizenship in the state in which they are resident. Professor of Law at Boston University Susan Akram, Omar Barghouti and Ilan Pappé have argued that Palestinian refugees from the envisioned Jewish State were entitled to normal Israeli citizenship based on laws of state succession.[82][83]

Arab states

See also: Casablanca Protocol

Most Palestinian refugees live either in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, or the three original "host countries" of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria who unwillingly accepted the first wave of refugees in 1948; these refugees are supported by UNRWA. The small number of refugees who settled in Egypt or Iraq were supported directly by those countries' governments. Over the last seven decades, a number of refugees have migrated to other Arab states, particularly the Arab states of the Gulf, primarily as economic migrants.[84]

Arab states' view of Palestinian refugees has varied over time. Arab governments have often supported the refugees in the name of Arab unity, or because they viewed the Palestinians as an important source of skilled human capital to support their economic development. However, Arab governments have also frequently "despised" the Palestinian refugees – either viewing them as a threat to demographic balance (as in Lebanon), or because of the "political message of freedom and emancipation that their ‘Palestinian-ness’ carried", or else because in some countries' history Palestinians have been "somewhat associated with strife and unrest".[85]

Palestinian refugees have taken citizenship in other Arab states, most notably in Jordan. However, the conferring of citizenship is a sensitive topic, as "it is often perceived as allowing Israel to evade its responsibility towards the refugees".[86]

Tashbih Sayyed, a fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized Arab nations of violating human rights and making the children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees second class citizens in Lebanon, Syria, or the Gulf States, and said that the UNRWA Palestine refugees "cling to the illusion that defeating the Jews will restore their dignity".[87]

Palestinian views

Most Palestine refugees claim a Palestinian right of return. In lack of an own country, their claim is based on Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which declares that "Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country", although it has been argued that the term only applies to citizens or nationals of that country. Although all Arab League members at the time (1948) - Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen - voted against the resolution,[88] they also cite the article 11 of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, which "Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors 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 [...]."[79] However it is currently a matter of dispute whether Resolution 194 referred only to the estimated 50,000 remaining Palestine refugees from the 1948 Palestine War, or additionally to their UNRWA-registered 4,950,000 descendants. The Palestinian National Authority supports this claim, and has been prepared to negotiate its implementation at the various peace talks. Both Fatah and Hamas hold a strong position for a claimed right of return, with Fatah being prepared to give ground on the issue while Hamas is not.[89] However, a report in Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper in which Abdullah Muhammad Ibrahim Abdullah, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon and the chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council's Political and Parliamentary Affairs committees,[90] said the proposed future Palestinian state would not be issuing Palestinian passports to UNRWA Palestine refugees – even refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza.

An independent poll by Khalil Shikaki was conducted in 2003 with 4,500 Palestinian refugee families of Gaza, West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon. It showed that the majority (54%) would accept a financial compensation and a place to live in West Bank or Gaza in place of returning to the exact place in modern-day Israel where they or their ancestors lived (this possibility of settlement is contemplated in the Resolution 194). Only 10% said they would live in Israel if given the option. The other third said they would prefer to live in other countries, or rejected the terms described.[91] However, the poll has been criticized as "methodologically problematic" and "rigged".[92] In 2003, nearly a hundred refugee organizations and NGOs in Lebanon denounced Shikaki's survey, as no local organization was aware of its implementation in Lebanon.[93]

In a 2 January 2005 opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Association for Human Rights involving Palestinian refugees in Lebanon:[94]

  • 96% refused to give up their right of return
  • 3% answered contrary
  • 1% did not answer

The Oslo Accords

Upon signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel, the EU and the US recognized PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In return, Yasser Arafat recognized the State of Israel and renounced terrorism. At the time, the accords were celebrated as a historic breakthrough. In accordance with these agreements, the Palestinian refugees began to be governed by an autonomous Palestinian Authority, and the parties agreed to negotiate the permanent status of the refugees, as early as 1996. However, events have halted the phasing process and made the likelihood of a future sovereign Palestinian state uncertain.[95] In another development, a rift developed between Fatah in the West-Bank and Hamas in Gaza after Hamas won the 2006 elections. Among other differences, Fatah officially recognizes the Oslo Accords with Israel, whereas Hamas does not.

United States

As of May 2012, the United States Senate Appropriations Committee approved a definition of a Palestine refugee to include only those original Palestine refugees who were actually displaced between June 1946 and May 1948, resulting in an estimated number of 30,000.[96]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ The West Bank was formerly administered by Jordan, who gave citizenship to its residents.
  2. ^ Anani called this a "crude estimate", as the Jordanian government has not made direct statistics on this matter.
  1. ^ a b The exact number of refugees is disputed. See List of estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948 for details.

Citations

  1. ^ Susan Akram (2011). International law and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taylor & Francis. pp. 19–20, 38. ISBN 978-0415573221. The term 'refugees' applies to all persons, Arabs, Jews and others who have been displaced from their homes in Palestine. This would include Arabs in Israel who have been shifted from their normal places of residence. It would also include Jews who had their homes in Arab Palestine, such as the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter of the Old City. It would not include Arabs who lost their lands but not their houses, such as the inhabitants of Tulkarm
  2. ^ "Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions" (PDF). UNRWA. Persons who meet UNRWA's Palestine Refugee criteria These are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict. Palestine Refugees, and descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are eligible to register for UNRWA services. The Agency accepts new applications from persons who wish to be registered as Palestine Refugees. Once they are registered with UNRWA, persons in this category are referred to as Registered Refugees or as Registered Palestine Refugees.
  3. ^ UNRWA: FAQ: As of 2019, over 5.6 million Palestine refugees were registered as such with the Agency
  4. ^ UNRWA: more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in ...
  5. ^ BADIL 2015, p. 52.
  6. ^ a b c Morris 2001, pp. 252–258.
  7. ^ UNRWA: In the aftermath of the hostilities of June 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ten camps were established to accommodate a new wave of displaced persons, both refugees and non-refugees.
  8. ^ Davis, Hanna (18 December 2021). "Jordan: Palestinian refugees struggle amid UNRWA funding cuts". Al-Jazeera English.
  9. ^ a b James G. Lindsay (January 2009). "Fixing UNRWA" (PDF). Policy Focus. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (91): 52 (see footnote 11). Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  10. ^ Brynen, Rex (2006). Perspectives on Palestinian repatriation. Palestinian Refugee Repatriation: Global Perspectives. Taylor & Francis. pp. 63–86 [66, 80]. ISBN 978-0415384971. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  11. ^ Menachem Klein, 'The Palestinian refugees of 1948: models of allowed and denied return,' in Dumper, 2006 pp. 87–106, [93].
  12. ^ "Treatment and Rights in Arab Host States (Right to Return". Human Rights Watch Policy. Retrieved 23 December 2022. Unlike Jordan, Syria has maintained the stateless status of its Palestinians but has afforded them the same economic and social rights enjoyed by Syrian citizens. According to a 1956 law, Palestinians are treated as if they are Syrians "in all matters pertaining to...the rights of employment, work, commerce, and national obligations". As a consequence, Palestinians in Syria do not suffer from massive unemployment or underemployment
  13. ^ . BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  14. ^ Bolongaro, Kait (23 March 2016). "Palestinian Syrians: Twice refugees - Human Rights". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  15. ^ a b A/RES/194 (III).
  16. ^ Dumper 2006, p. 2: the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes was accepted and supported by the United Nations Resolution 194.
  17. ^ Goldberg 2012: Today, UNRWA's annual budget stands at approximately $600 million, ...
  18. ^ UNRWA.
  19. ^ Based on UNGA Resolution 46/46 C of 9 December 1991.
  20. ^ UNRWA: UNRWA services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance.
  21. ^ UNRWA: A Palestine refugee camp is defined as a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and set up facilities to cater to their needs.
  22. ^ a b "Who are Palestine refugees?". Palestine refugees. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  23. ^ "UNRWA's Frequently Asked Questions under "Who is a Palestine refugee?"". United Nations. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
  24. ^ http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/3ae6b3314.pdf "Thus, a holder of a so-called 'Nansen Passport' or a 'Certificate of Eligibility' issued by the International Refugee Organization must be considered a refugee under the 1951 Convention unless one of the cessation clauses has become applicable to his case or he is excluded from the application of the Convention by one of the exclusion clauses. This also applies to a surviving child of a statutory refugee."
  25. ^ "Palestine refugees". UNRWA.
  26. ^ Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "UNHCR - Page not found". UNHCR. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  27. ^ Helena Lindholm Schulz, with Juliane Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland, Psychology Press reprint 2003 p. 130.
  28. ^ Chiller-Glaus 2007, p. 82: Those exiled during or since 1967 are with their offspring known as "displaced persons" (nazihun) – although a high proportion of them are 1948 refugees
  29. ^ Goldberg 2012: According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – the main body tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees – there are more than 5 million refugees at present. However, the number of Palestinians alive who were personally displaced during Israel’s War of Independence is estimated to be around 30,000.
  30. ^ Shlaim, Avi, "The War of the Israeli Historians." Center for Arab Studies, 1 December 2003 (retrieved 17 February 2009) 3 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  31. ^ Benny Morris, 1989, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949, Cambridge University Press; Benny Morris, 1991, 1948 and after; Israel and the Palestinians, Clarendon Press, Oxford; Walid Khalidi, 1992, All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Institute for Palestine Studies; Nur Masalha, 1992, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, Institute for Palestine Studies; Efraim Karsh, 1997, Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians", Cass; Benny Morris, 2004, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press; Yoav Gelber, 2006, Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Oxford University Press; Ilan Pappé, 2006, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld
  32. ^ Research Fellow Truman Institute Benny Morris; Benny Morris; Morris Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. pp. 597–. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6. But no expulsion policy was ever enunciated and Ben-Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he preferred that his generals 'understand' what he wanted. He probably wished to avoid going down in history as the 'great expeller' and he did not want his government to be blamed for a morally questionable policy.
  33. ^ Benny Morris (2003), pp. 138–139.
  34. ^ Benny Morris (2003), p. 262
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  40. ^ Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 245.
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  45. ^ UN Doc A/8389 of 5 October 1971. Para 57. appearing in the Sunday Times (London) on 11 October 1970, where reference is made not only to the villages of Jalou, Beit Nuba, and Imwas, also referred to by the Special Committee in its first report, but in addition to villages like Surit, Beit Awwa, Beit Mirsem and El-Shuyoukh in the Hebron area and Jiflik, Agarith and Huseirat, in the Jordan Valley. The Special Committee has ascertained that all these villages have been completely destroyed Para 58. the village of Nebi Samwil was in fact destroyed by Israeli armed forces on 22 March 1971. . Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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  84. ^ Albanese & Takkenberg 2020, p. 183: "The vast majority of the Palestinians who became refugees in 1948, continues to live in the places where they initially took refuge: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, known as the traditional ‘host countries’, had no choice but to accept the presence of the refugees, while the United Nations (UN) through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) provided them assistance and attempted to negotiate a political solution. Smaller groups of refugees who had settled in Egypt and Iraq were assisted by local governments, rather than the UN. Difficult living conditions in the host countries prompted thousands of refugees to seek better opportunities not only in the Arabian Peninsula, but also in North Africa."
  85. ^ Albanese & Takkenberg 2020, p. 183-184: "Arab countries have generally supported Palestinians, including refugees, in the name of Arab brotherhood and solidarity, but at times also despised them, as a result of political factors and interests. For example, in Jordan former King Abdullah’s aspiration to modernize the East Bank of the Jordan River and re-establish ‘Greater Syria’ resulted in the annexation of the West Bank in 1950, and the extension of Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians under its control (refugees and non-refugee alike). In Lebanon, the Palestinian influx, dominated by Sunni Muslims, was perceived as a threat to the delicate balance between different religious confessions and the related political status quo. In Syria, the Palestinian refugees never constituted more than three per cent of the population and their presence was therefore far less sensitive than in Lebanon. In North Africa and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Palestinians were not recognized as refugees as they largely moved there as migrant workers seeking better opportunities, rather than international protection. Arab rulers generally welcomed them as a much needed work-force and also offered political support to their national cause, but subliminally despised the political message of freedom and emancipation that their ‘Palestinian-ness’ carried. With time, Palestinian refugees’ identity crystalized as a ‘nation-in-exile’, but it also became part of the national fabric of some of these countries, not only in Jordan and Lebanon, but also in Egypt, Iraq, and Kuwait. In the national history of some of those countries, Palestinians are somewhat associated with strife and unrest. This, coupled with lack of application of international human rights and refugee laws, as well as a high degree of politicization, has compounded their situation. While socio-economic differences exist across Palestinians in exile, and those who have thrived in host communities are all but rare, the large majority has come to constitute a ‘politically, socially, and economically disadvantaged group’ that has often experienced poverty, discrimination, and, not infrequently, persecution because of their nationality, including in countries where they were initially well received and either legally or de facto integrated. As a result, pending the quest for a political settlement, many have been forced to move from one country to another, often more than once, finding themselves going from one unstable situation to the next."
  86. ^ Albanese & Takkenberg 2020, p. 268: "While cases of Palestinians acquiring citizenship in Arab states are not rare – with Jordan standing out for conferring its citizenship to a large group of Palestinians en masse – they have been ad hoc and are not well documented. The subject remains sensitive, as it is often perceived as allowing Israel to evade its responsibility towards the refugees. In general, the treatment has ranged from favourable in certain countries and at given times in history (e.g. in Libya and the Arabian Peninsula until the 1990s and in Iraq until 2003), to discriminatory and often degrading in others (such as Lebanon and Egypt after the 1970s, as well as many states on multiple occasions since the 1990s). Such treatment has also reflected self-interest, since Palestinians were largely welcome as qualified work-force at the time it was needed. Political circumstances surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as well as shifts in the relations between Arab states and the Palestinian leadership (PLO and PA) have often impacted Arab states’ approach to Palestinians. Vindictive policies, often aiming at targeting the PLO, have resulted in the punishment of hundreds of thousands and the ongoing displacement of many more. About 700,000 Palestinians, mostly children and grandchildren of the 1948 refugees, have been cumulatively displaced from Arab countries alone, from the 1970s onward. While the legacy of Palestinian militant resistance in a number of Arab countries cannot be ignored, as a whole, the Palestinian people – and the refugees in particular – have paid the brunt for the political deadlock."
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  94. ^ "استطلاع للاجئين في مخيمات لبنان: الغالبية تعارض انتخابات تحت الاحتلال ولا تثق بقدرة "ابو مازن"". Saida City Net. 2 January 2005. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
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  96. ^ "According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – the main body tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees – there are more than 5 million refugees at present. However, the number of Palestinians alive who were personally displaced during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War is estimated to be around 30,000."US Senate dramatically scales down definition of Palestinian 'refugees'

Sources

Books

  • Albanese, Francesca P.; Takkenberg, Lex (2020). Palestinian Refugees in International Law. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-108678-6.
  • BADIL (2015). "Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2013-2015".
  • Esber, Rosemarie M. (2008) Under the Cover of War: the Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians. Arabicus Books & Media ISBN 978-0-9815131-7-1
  • Gelber, Yoav (2006). Palestine 1948. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1-84519-075-0.
  • Gerson, Allan (1978). Israel, the West Bank and International Law. Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-3091-8
  • Gunness, Chris (2011). "Exploding the myths: UNRWA, UNHCR and the Palestine refugees". Ma'an News Agency.
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  • Morris, Benny (2003). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00967-7
  • Morris, Benny, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, (2009) Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15112-1
  • Reiter, Yitzhak, National Minority, Regional Majority: Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution), (2009) Syracuse Univ Press (Sd). ISBN 978-0-8156-3230-6
  • Pappe, Ilan (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, London and New York: Oneworld, 2006. ISBN 1-85168-467-0
  • Segev, Tom (2007) 1967 Israel, The War and the Year that Transformed the Middle East Little Brown ISBN 978-0-316-72478-4
  • Seliktar, Ofira (2002). Divided We Stand: American Jews, Israel, and the Peace Process. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-97408-1
  • Tovy, Jacob (2014). Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue: The Formulation of a Policy, 1948–1956. Routledge.
  • UNDPI (2008). "The Question of Palestine and the United Nations" (PDF). DPI/2499.
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  • Bowker, Robert (2003). Palestinian Refugees: Mythology, Identity, and the Search for Peace. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58826-202-8.
  • Rosemarie M. Esber (2008). Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians. Arabicus Books & Media. ISBN 978-0-9815131-7-1.
  • Dumper, Michael (2006). "Introduction". Palestinian Refugee Repatriation: Global Perspectives. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-38497-1.
  • Chiller-Glaus, Michael (2007). Tackling the Intractable: Palestinian Refugees and the Search for Middle East Peace. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-03911-298-2.
  • Morris, Benny (2001). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab conflict, 1881–2001 (1st Vintage Books ed.). New York: Vintage Books. pp. 252–258. ISBN 978-0-679-74475-7.

Other

  • Goldberg, Ari Ben (25 May 2012). "US Senate dramatically scales down definition of Palestinian 'refugees'". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • "Palestine refugees". UNRWA. UNRWA. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  • "Frequently asked questions". UNRWA. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  • "A/RES/194 (III) of 11 December 1948". unispal.un.org. UNISPAL.

External links

Interview on Palestinian refugees on This Week In Palestine radio show.
  • UNRWA Palestinian refugee statistics
  • Google map of 58 UNRWA camps with descriptions and photos
  • UN refugee agency unveils Palestinian archive

January 15, 2023
palestinian, refugees, further, information, definitions, palestinian, history, palestinian, nationality, citizens, mandatory, palestine, their, descendants, fled, were, expelled, from, their, country, over, course, 1947, palestine, 1948, palestinian, exodus, . Further information Definitions of Palestinian and History of Palestinian nationality Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine and their descendants who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947 49 Palestine war 1948 Palestinian exodus and the Six Day War 1967 Palestinian exodus Most Palestinian refugees live in or near 68 Palestinian refugee camps across Jordan Lebanon Syria the West Bank and the Gaza Strip In 2019 more than 5 6 million Palestinian refugees were registered with the United Nations Clickable map of the more than 400 depopulated towns and villages of the 1948 Palestinian exodus red and the c 60 modern day Palestinian refugee camps blue In 1949 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNRWA defined Palestinian refugees to refer to the original Palestine refugees as well as their patrilineal descendants However UNRWA s assistance is limited to Palestine refugees residing in UNRWA s areas of operation in the Palestinian Territories Lebanon Jordan and Syria 1 2 As of 2019 more than 5 6 million Palestinians were registered with UNRWA as refugees 3 of which more than 1 5 million live in UNRWA run camps 4 The term Palestine refugee does not include internally displaced Palestinians who became Israeli citizens or displaced Palestinian Jews According to some estimates as many as 1 050 000 1 380 000 5 people who descend from displaced people of Mandatory Palestine are not registered under UNRWA or UNHCR mandates During the 1948 Palestine War around 700 000 fn 1 Palestinian Arabs or 85 of the total population in what became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes to the West Bank the Gaza Strip and to the countries of Lebanon Syria and Jordan 6 They and their descendants who are also entitled to registration are assisted by UNWRA in 59 registered camps ten of which were established in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967 to cope with the new wave of displaced Palestinians 7 They are also the world s oldest unsettled refugee population having been under the ongoing governance of Arab states following the 1948 Arab Israeli War the refugee populations of the West Bank under Israeli governance since the Six Day War and Palestinian administration since 1994 and the Gaza Strip administered by the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas since 2007 Today the largest number of refugees over 2 000 000 live in Jordan where by 2009 over 90 of UNWRA registered Palestinian refugees had acquired full citizenship rights This figure consists almost exclusively of West Bank descended Palestinians a however as of December 2021 Palestinians with roots in the Gaza Strip are also still kept in legal limbo In 2021 Jordanian politician Jawad Anani estimated that roughly 50 of Jordan s population had West Bank Palestinian roots b 8 9 10 11 Another approximately 2 000 000 refugees live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israeli occupation and blockade Approximately 500 000 refugees live in each of Syria and Lebanon respectively albeit under very different circumstances While Palestinian refugees in Syria maintained their stateless status the Syrian government afforded them the same economic and social rights enjoyed by Syrian citizens 12 they are also drafted into the Armed Forces despite not being citizens 13 14 Citizenship or legal residency in some host countries is denied most notably for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon where the absorption of Palestinians would upset a delicate confessional balance For the refugees themselves these situations mean they have reduced rights no right to vote limited property rights and access to social services among other things On 11 December 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations UNGA adopted Resolution 194 which affirmed the Palestinians right to return to their homes 15 16 Contents 1 Definitions 1 1 UNRWA 1 2 Palestinian definitions 2 Origin of the Palestine refugees 2 1 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Palestine War 2 2 Palestinian refugees from Six Day War 2 3 Palestinian exodus from Kuwait Gulf War 2 4 Palestinian refugees as part of the Syrian refugee crisis 3 Refugee statistics 3 1 Gaza Strip 3 2 West Bank 3 3 Jordan 3 4 Lebanon 3 5 Syria 3 6 Saudi Arabia 3 7 Iraq 3 8 Other countries 4 Positions 4 1 Israeli views 4 2 Arab states 4 3 Palestinian views 5 The Oslo Accords 5 1 United States 6 See also 7 References 7 1 Notes 7 2 Citations 7 3 Sources 7 3 1 Books 7 3 2 Other 8 External linksDefinitionsUNRWA Palestinian refugees in Aida Refugee Camp Bethlehem 1956 The United Nations Relief and Works Agency UNRWA is an organ of the United Nations created exclusively for the purpose of aiding those displaced by the Arab Israeli conflict with an annual budget of approximately 600 million 17 It defines a Palestine refugee as a person whose normal place of residence was Mandatory Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab Israeli conflict 18 The Six Day War of 1967 generated a new wave of Palestinian refugees who could not be included in the original UNRWA definition From 1991 the UN General Assembly has adopted an annual resolution allowing the 1967 refugees within the UNRWA mandate 19 UNRWA aids all those living in its area of operations who meet its working definition who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance 20 and those who first became refugees as a result of the Six Day War regardless whether they reside in areas designated as Palestine refugee camps or in other permanent communities A Palestine refugee camp is a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and to set up facilities to cater to their needs 21 About 1 4 million of registered Palestine refugees approximately one third live in the 58 UNRWA recognised refugee camps in Jordan Lebanon Syria the Gaza Strip and the West Bank 22 The UNRWA definition does not cover final status 22 23 Registered descendants of UNRWA Palestine refugees like Nansen passport and Certificate of Eligibility holders the documents issued to those displaced by World War II or like UNHCR refugees 24 inherit the same Palestine refugee status as their male parent According to UNRWA The descendants of Palestine refugee males including adopted children are also eligible for registration 25 The UNHCR had counted 90 000 refugees by 2014 26 Palestinian definitions Palestinians make several distinctions relating to Palestinian refugees The 1948 refugees and their descendants are broadly defined as refugees laji un The Palestine Liberation Organization PLO especially those who have returned and form part of the PNA but also Palestinian refugee camp residents in Lebanon repudiate this term since it implies being a passive victim and prefer the autonym of returnees a idun 27 Those who left since 1967 and their descendants are called nazihun or displaced persons though many may also descend from the 1948 group 28 Origin of the Palestine refugees 1948 Palestinian exodus Palestine refugees making their way from Galilee in October November 1948 Most Palestinian refugees have retained their refugee status and continue to reside in refugee camps including within the State of Palestine in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip Their descendants form a sizable portion of the Palestinian diaspora Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Palestine War Main articles 1948 Palestinian exodus Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus and Palestinian Exodus 1949 to 1956 During the 1948 Palestine War some 700 000 6 fn 1 Palestinian Arabs or 85 of the Palestinian Arab population of territories that became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes 6 Some 30 000 29 to 50 000 citation needed were alive by 2012 The causes and responsibilities of the exodus are a matter of controversy among historians and commentators of the conflict 30 While historians agree on most of the events of the period there remains disagreement as to whether the exodus was the result of a plan designed before or during the war or was an unintended consequence of the war 31 According to historian Benny Morris the expulsion was planned and encouraged by the Zionist leadership 32 According to Morris between December 1947 and March 1948 around 100 000 Palestine Arabs fled Among them were many from the higher and middle classes from the cities who left voluntarily expecting to return when the Arab states won the war and took control of the country 33 When the Haganah and then the emerging Israeli army Israel Defense Forces or IDF went on the defensive between April and July a further 250 000 to 300 000 Palestinian Arabs left or were expelled mainly from the towns of Haifa Tiberias Beit Shean Safed Jaffa and Acre which lost more than 90 percent of their Arab inhabitants 34 Expulsions took place in many towns and villages particularly along the Tel Aviv Jerusalem road 35 and in Eastern Galilee 36 About 50 000 70 000 inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle were expelled towards Ramallah by the IDF during Operation Danny 37 and most others during operations of the IDF in its rear areas 38 During Operation Dekel the Arabs of Nazareth and South Galilee were allowed to remain in their homes 39 Today they form the core of the Arab Israeli population From October to November 1948 the IDF launched Operation Yoav to remove Egyptian forces from the Negev and Operation Hiram to remove the Arab Liberation Army from North Galilee during which at least nine events named massacres of Arabs were carried out by IDF soldiers 40 These events generated an exodus of 200 000 to 220 000 Palestinian Arabs Here Arabs fled fearing atrocities or were expelled if they had not fled 41 After the war from 1948 to 1950 the IDF resettled around 30 000 to 40 000 Arabs from the borderlands of the new Israeli state 42 Palestinian refugees from Six Day War Main article 1967 Palestinian exodus As a result of the Six Day War around 280 000 to 325 000 Palestinians fled or were expelled 43 from the territories won in the Six Day War by Israel including the demolished Palestinian villages of Imwas Yalo Bayt Nuba Surit Beit Awwa Beit Mirsem Shuyukh Jiftlik Agarith and Huseirat and the emptying of the refugee camps of Aqabat Jabr and Ein as Sultan 44 45 Palestinian exodus from Kuwait Gulf War Main article Palestinian exodus from Kuwait Gulf War The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War During the Gulf War more than 200 000 Palestinians voluntarily fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait due to harassment and intimidation by Iraqi security forces 46 in addition to getting fired from work by Iraqi authority figures in Kuwait 46 After the Gulf War Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200 000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait in 1991 46 Kuwait s policy which led to this exodus was a response to alignment of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO with the dictator Saddam Hussein who had earlier invaded Kuwait Prior to the Gulf War Palestinians numbered 400 000 out of Kuwait s population of 2 2 million 47 The Palestinians who fled Kuwait were Jordanian citizens 48 In 2013 there were 280 000 Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin in Kuwait 49 In 2012 80 000 Palestinians without Jordanian citizenship lived in Kuwait 50 In total there are 360 000 Palestinians in Kuwait as of 2012 2013 Palestinian refugees as part of the Syrian refugee crisis Main article Refugees of the Syrian Civil War Many Syrian Palestinians were displaced as a result of the Syrian Civil War starting in 2011 By October 2013 235 000 Palestinians had been displaced within Syria itself and 60 000 alongside 2 2 million Syrians had fled the country 51 By March 2019 the UHCR estimated that 120 000 Palestine refugees had fled Syria since 2011 primarily to Lebanon and Jordan but also Turkey and further afield 52 There were reports that Jordan and Lebanon have turned away Palestinian refugees attempting to flee the humanitarian crises in Syria citation needed By 2013 Jordan had absorbed 126 000 Syrian refugees but Palestinians fleeing Syria are placed in a separate refugee camp under stricter conditions and are banned from entering Jordanian cities 53 Palestinian refugees from Syria are also immigrating to Europe seeking asylum especially to Sweden which has offered asylum to any Syrian refugees that manage to reach its territory albeit with some conditions Many do so by finding their way to Egypt and making the journey by sea In October 2013 the PFLP GC claimed that some 23 000 Palestinian refugees from the Yarmouk Camp had immigrated to Sweden alone 54 Refugee statisticsFurther information Palestinian refugee camps Destroyed house in the Jabalia refugee camp Gaza Israel conflict December 2012 The number of Palestine refugees varies depending on the source For 1948 49 refugees for example the Israeli government suggests a number as low as 520 000 as opposed to 850 000 by their Palestinian counterparts citation needed As of January 2015 UNRWA cites 5 149 742 registered refugees in total of whom 1 603 018 are registered in camps 55 District Number of depopulated villages Number of refugees in 1948 Number of refugees in 2000Beersheba 88 90 507 590 231Beisan 31 19 602 127 832Jenin 6 4 005 26 118Haifa 59 121 196 790 365Hebron 16 22 991 149 933Ramle 64 97 405 635 215Safad 78 52 248 340 729Tiberias 26 28 872 188 285Tulkarm 18 11 032 71 944Acre 30 47 038 306 753Gaza 46 79 947 521 360Jerusalem 39 97 950 638 769Nazareth 5 8 746 57 036Jaffa 25 123 227 803 610Total 531 804 766 5 248 185Demography of Palestine 56 The number of UNRWA registered Palestine refugees by country or territory in January 2015 were as follows 55 Jordan 2 117 361 Gaza Strip 1 276 929 West Bank 774 167 Syria 528 616 Lebanon 452 669Total 5 149 742 Pardes Hana Immigrant Camp of Jewish refugees 1956 In the context of the Arab Israeli conflict Jewish refugees were initially resettled in refugee camps known variously as Immigrant camps Ma abarot and development towns prior to absorption into mainstream Israeli society Conversely many Palestinian refugees remain settled in Palestinian refugee camps while others have been absorbed into Jordanian society or the Palestinian territories Since 1948 the sovereign State of Israel has guaranteed asylum and citizenship to Jewish refugees while the self declared State of Palestine remains unable to absorb the Palestinian refugees due to lack of de facto sovereignty over its claimed territories citation needed dubious discuss Gaza Strip 2018 Gaza border protests Bureij refugee camp in Gaza As of January 2015 the Gaza Strip has 8 UNRWA refugee camps with 560 964 Palestinian refugees and 1 276 929 registered refugees in total 55 out of a population of 1 816 379 citation needed West Bank As of January 2015 the West Bank has 19 UNRWA refugee camps with 228 560 Palestinian refugees and 774 167 registered refugees in total 55 out of a population of 2 345 107 citation needed Jordan See also Palestinians in Jordan More than 2 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan Most Palestine refugees in Jordan but not all have full citizenship 57 following Jordan s annexation and occupation of the West Bank The percentage of Palestinian refugees living in refugee camps to those who settled outside the camps is the lowest of all UNRWA fields of operations Palestine refugees are allowed access to public services and healthcare as a result refugee camps are becoming more like poor city suburbs than refugee camps Most Palestine refugees moved out of the camps to other parts of the country and the number of people registered in refugee camps as of January 2015 is 385 418 who live in ten refugee camps 55 This caused UNRWA to reduce the budget allocated to Palestine refugee camps in Jordan Former UNRWA chief attorney James G Lindsay wrote in 2009 In Jordan where 2 million Palestinian refugees live all but 167 000 have citizenship and are fully eligible for government services including education and health care Lindsay suggests that eliminating services to refugees whose needs are subsidized by Jordan would reduce the refugee list by 40 58 9 Palestinians who moved from the West Bank whether refugees or not to Jordan are issued yellow ID cards to distinguish them from the Palestinians of the official 10 refugee camps in Jordan From 1988 to 2012 thousands of those yellow ID card Palestinians had their Jordanian citizenship revoked Human Rights Watch estimated that about 2 700 Palestinians were stripped of Jordanian nationality between 2004 and 2008 59 In 2012 the Jordanian government promised to stop revoking the citizenship of some Palestinians and restored citizenship to 4 500 Palestinians who had previously lost it 60 Lebanon See also Palestinians in Lebanon Karantina massacre Tel al Zaatar massacre and Sabra and Shatila massacre Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut in May 2019 Entrance to the Bourj el Barajneh refugee camp in southern Beirut 100 000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon because of the 1948 Arab Israeli War and were not allowed to return 61 As of January 2015 there were 452 669 registered refugees in Lebanon 55 In a 2007 study Amnesty International denounced the appalling social and economic condition of Palestinians in Lebanon 61 Until 2005 Palestinians were forbidden to work in over 70 jobs because they do not have Lebanese citizenship but this was later reduced to around 20 as of 2007 after liberalization laws 61 In 2010 Palestinians were granted the same rights to work as other foreigners in the country 62 Lebanon gave citizenship to about 50 000 Christian Palestinian refugees during the 1950s and 1960s In the mid 1990s about 60 000 Shiite Muslim refugees were granted citizenship This caused a protest from Maronite authorities leading to citizenship being given to all Christian refugees who were not already citizens 63 In the 2010s many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon began immigrating to Europe both legally and illegally as part of the European migrant crisis due to a deterioration in living conditions there as part of the Syrian civil war In December 2015 sources told Al Jazeera that thousands of Palestinians were fleeing to Europe by way of Turkey with about 4 000 having fled the Ain al Hilweh camp alone in recent months Many were reaching Germany with others going to Russia Sweden Belgium and Norway 64 A census completed in January 2018 found that only around 175 000 Palestinian refugees were living in Lebanon as opposed to previous UNRWA figures which put the number at between 400 000 and 500 000 as well as other estimates that placed the number between 260 000 and 280 000 65 66 According to writer and researcher Mudar Zahran a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage the media chose to deliberately ignore the conditions of the Palestinians living in Lebanese refugee camps and that the tendency to blame Israel for everything has provided Arab leaders with an excuse to deliberately ignore the human rights of the Palestinian in their countries 67 Syria See also Palestinians in Syria Syria had 528 616 registered Palestinian refugees in January 2015 There were 9 UNRWA refugee camps with 178 666 official Palestinian refugees 55 As a result of the Syrian civil war large numbers of Palestinian refugees fled Syria to Europe as part of the European migrant crisis and to other Arab countries In September 2015 a Palestinian official said that only 200 000 Palestinian refugees were left in Syria with 100 000 Palestinian refugees from Syria in Europe and the remainder in other Arab countries 68 Saudi Arabia An estimated 240 000 Palestinians are living in Saudi Arabia Palestinians are the sole foreign group that cannot benefit from a 2004 law passed by Saudi Arabia s Council of Ministers which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship 69 70 Iraq Main article Palestinians in Iraq There were 34 000 Palestinian refugees living in Iraq prior to the Iraq War In the aftermath of the war the majority fled to neighboring Jordan and Syria or were killed citation needed Thousands lived as internally displaced persons within Iraq or were stranded in camps along Iraq s borders with Jordan and Syria as no country in the region would accept them and lived in temporary camps along the no man s land in the border zones Other countries India agreed to take in 165 refugees with the first group arriving in March 2006 Generally they were unable to find work in India as they spoke only Arabic though some found employment with UNHCR s non governmental partners All of them were provided with free access to public hospitals Of the 165 refugees 137 of them later found clearance for resettlement in Sweden 71 In November 2006 54 were granted asylum in Canada and in 2007 some 200 were accepted for resettlement in Sweden and Iceland and Brazil agreed to take 100 72 73 In 2009 significant numbers of these refugees were allowed to resettle abroad More than 1 000 were accepted by various countries in Europe and South America and an additional 1 350 were cleared for resettlement in the United States 74 75 Another 68 were allowed to resettle in Australia 76 However the majority of Palestine refugees strongly oppose resettlement and much rather want to return 77 PositionsMain article Palestinian right of return On 11 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly discussed Bernadotte s report and passed a resolution that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbour should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date 78 This General Assembly article 11 of Resolution 194 has been annually re affirmed 15 79 Israeli views The Jewish Agency promised to the UN before 1948 that Palestinian Arabs would become full citizens of the State of Israel 80 and the Israeli declaration of independence invited the Arab inhabitants of Israel to full and equal citizenship 81 In practice Israel does not grant citizenship to the refugees as it does to those Arabs who continue to reside in its borders The 1947 Partition Plan determined citizenship based on residency such that Arabs and Jews residing in Palestine but not in Jerusalem would obtain citizenship in the state in which they are resident Professor of Law at Boston University Susan Akram Omar Barghouti and Ilan Pappe have argued that Palestinian refugees from the envisioned Jewish State were entitled to normal Israeli citizenship based on laws of state succession 82 83 Arab states See also Casablanca Protocol Most Palestinian refugees live either in the West Bank or Gaza Strip or the three original host countries of Jordan Lebanon and Syria who unwillingly accepted the first wave of refugees in 1948 these refugees are supported by UNRWA The small number of refugees who settled in Egypt or Iraq were supported directly by those countries governments Over the last seven decades a number of refugees have migrated to other Arab states particularly the Arab states of the Gulf primarily as economic migrants 84 Arab states view of Palestinian refugees has varied over time Arab governments have often supported the refugees in the name of Arab unity or because they viewed the Palestinians as an important source of skilled human capital to support their economic development However Arab governments have also frequently despised the Palestinian refugees either viewing them as a threat to demographic balance as in Lebanon or because of the political message of freedom and emancipation that their Palestinian ness carried or else because in some countries history Palestinians have been somewhat associated with strife and unrest 85 Palestinian refugees have taken citizenship in other Arab states most notably in Jordan However the conferring of citizenship is a sensitive topic as it is often perceived as allowing Israel to evade its responsibility towards the refugees 86 Tashbih Sayyed a fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies criticized Arab nations of violating human rights and making the children and grandchildren of Palestinian refugees second class citizens in Lebanon Syria or the Gulf States and said that the UNRWA Palestine refugees cling to the illusion that defeating the Jews will restore their dignity 87 Palestinian views Most Palestine refugees claim a Palestinian right of return In lack of an own country their claim is based on Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UDHR which declares that Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own and to return to his country although it has been argued that the term only applies to citizens or nationals of that country Although all Arab League members at the time 1948 Egypt Iraq Lebanon Saudi Arabia Syria and Yemen voted against the resolution 88 they also cite the article 11 of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 which Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors 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 79 However it is currently a matter of dispute whether Resolution 194 referred only to the estimated 50 000 remaining Palestine refugees from the 1948 Palestine War or additionally to their UNRWA registered 4 950 000 descendants The Palestinian National Authority supports this claim and has been prepared to negotiate its implementation at the various peace talks Both Fatah and Hamas hold a strong position for a claimed right of return with Fatah being prepared to give ground on the issue while Hamas is not 89 However a report in Lebanon s Daily Star newspaper in which Abdullah Muhammad Ibrahim Abdullah the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon and the chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council s Political and Parliamentary Affairs committees 90 said the proposed future Palestinian state would not be issuing Palestinian passports to UNRWA Palestine refugees even refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza An independent poll by Khalil Shikaki was conducted in 2003 with 4 500 Palestinian refugee families of Gaza West Bank Jordan and Lebanon It showed that the majority 54 would accept a financial compensation and a place to live in West Bank or Gaza in place of returning to the exact place in modern day Israel where they or their ancestors lived this possibility of settlement is contemplated in the Resolution 194 Only 10 said they would live in Israel if given the option The other third said they would prefer to live in other countries or rejected the terms described 91 However the poll has been criticized as methodologically problematic and rigged 92 In 2003 nearly a hundred refugee organizations and NGOs in Lebanon denounced Shikaki s survey as no local organization was aware of its implementation in Lebanon 93 In a 2 January 2005 opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Association for Human Rights involving Palestinian refugees in Lebanon 94 96 refused to give up their right of return 3 answered contrary 1 did not answerThe Oslo AccordsUpon signing the Oslo Accords in 1993 Israel the EU and the US recognized PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people In return Yasser Arafat recognized the State of Israel and renounced terrorism At the time the accords were celebrated as a historic breakthrough In accordance with these agreements the Palestinian refugees began to be governed by an autonomous Palestinian Authority and the parties agreed to negotiate the permanent status of the refugees as early as 1996 However events have halted the phasing process and made the likelihood of a future sovereign Palestinian state uncertain 95 In another development a rift developed between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza after Hamas won the 2006 elections Among other differences Fatah officially recognizes the Oslo Accords with Israel whereas Hamas does not United States As of May 2012 the United States Senate Appropriations Committee approved a definition of a Palestine refugee to include only those original Palestine refugees who were actually displaced between June 1946 and May 1948 resulting in an estimated number of 30 000 96 See also Palestine portal Politics portalEstimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948 Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries Palestinian diasporaReferencesNotes The West Bank was formerly administered by Jordan who gave citizenship to its residents Anani called this a crude estimate as the Jordanian government has not made direct statistics on this matter a b The exact number of refugees is disputed See List of estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948 for details Citations Susan Akram 2011 International law and the Israeli Palestinian conflict Taylor amp Francis pp 19 20 38 ISBN 978 0415573221 The term refugees applies to all persons Arabs Jews and others who have been displaced from their homes in Palestine This would include Arabs in Israel who have been shifted from their normal places of residence It would also include Jews who had their homes in Arab Palestine such as the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter of the Old City It would not include Arabs who lost their lands but not their houses such as the inhabitants of Tulkarm Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions PDF UNRWA Persons who meet UNRWA s Palestine Refugee criteria These are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict Palestine Refugees and descendants of Palestine refugee males including legally adopted children are eligible to register for UNRWA services The Agency accepts new applications from persons who wish to be registered as Palestine Refugees Once they are registered with UNRWA persons in this category are referred to as Registered Refugees or as Registered Palestine Refugees UNRWA FAQ As of 2019 over 5 6 million Palestine refugees were registered as such with the Agency UNRWA more than 1 5 million individuals live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in BADIL 2015 p 52 a b c Morris 2001 pp 252 258 UNRWA In the aftermath of the hostilities of June 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ten camps were established to accommodate a new wave of displaced persons both refugees and non refugees Davis Hanna 18 December 2021 Jordan Palestinian refugees struggle amid UNRWA funding cuts Al Jazeera English a b James G Lindsay January 2009 Fixing UNRWA PDF Policy Focus The Washington Institute for Near East Policy 91 52 see footnote 11 Retrieved 4 April 2020 Brynen Rex 2006 Perspectives on Palestinian repatriation Palestinian Refugee Repatriation Global Perspectives Taylor amp Francis pp 63 86 66 80 ISBN 978 0415384971 Retrieved 4 April 2020 Menachem Klein The Palestinian refugees of 1948 models of allowed and denied return in Dumper 2006 pp 87 106 93 Treatment and Rights in Arab Host States Right to Return Human Rights Watch Policy Retrieved 23 December 2022 Unlike Jordan Syria has maintained the stateless status of its Palestinians but has afforded them the same economic and social rights enjoyed by Syrian citizens According to a 1956 law Palestinians are treated as if they are Syrians in all matters pertaining to the rights of employment work commerce and national obligations As a consequence Palestinians in Syria do not suffer from massive unemployment or underemployment Profiles Palestinian Refugees in SYRIA BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights Archived from the original on 11 August 2014 Retrieved 26 July 2014 Bolongaro Kait 23 March 2016 Palestinian Syrians Twice refugees Human Rights Al Jazeera Retrieved 18 June 2021 a b A RES 194 III Dumper 2006 p 2 the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes was accepted and supported by the United Nations Resolution 194 Goldberg 2012 Today UNRWA s annual budget stands at approximately 600 million UNRWA Based on UNGA Resolution 46 46 C of 9 December 1991 UNRWA UNRWA services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance UNRWA A Palestine refugee camp is defined as a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and set up facilities to cater to their needs a b Who are Palestine refugees Palestine refugees United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees Retrieved 31 May 2012 UNRWA s Frequently Asked Questions under Who is a Palestine refugee United Nations Retrieved 1 May 2012 http www unhcr org refworld pdfid 3ae6b3314 pdf Thus a holder of a so called Nansen Passport or a Certificate of Eligibility issued by the International Refugee Organization must be considered a refugee under the 1951 Convention unless one of the cessation clauses has become applicable to his case or he is excluded from the application of the Convention by one of the exclusion clauses This also applies to a surviving child of a statutory refugee Palestine refugees UNRWA Refugees United Nations High Commissioner for UNHCR Page not found UNHCR a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a Cite uses generic title help Helena Lindholm Schulz with Juliane Hammer The Palestinian Diaspora Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland Psychology Press reprint 2003 p 130 Chiller Glaus 2007 p 82 Those exiled during or since 1967 are with their offspring known as displaced persons nazihun although a high proportion of them are 1948 refugees Goldberg 2012 According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency the main body tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees there are more than 5 million refugees at present However the number of Palestinians alive who were personally displaced during Israel s War of Independence is estimated to be around 30 000 Shlaim Avi The War of the Israeli Historians Center for Arab Studies 1 December 2003 retrieved 17 February 2009 Archived 3 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine Benny Morris 1989 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947 1949 Cambridge University Press Benny Morris 1991 1948 and after Israel and the Palestinians Clarendon Press Oxford Walid Khalidi 1992 All That Remains The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 Institute for Palestine Studies Nur Masalha 1992 Expulsion of the Palestinians The Concept of Transfer in Zionist Political Thought Institute for Palestine Studies Efraim Karsh 1997 Fabricating Israeli History The New Historians Cass Benny Morris 2004 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited Cambridge University Press Yoav Gelber 2006 Palestine 1948 War Escape and the Palestinian Refugee Problem Oxford University Press Ilan Pappe 2006 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine OneWorld Research Fellow Truman Institute Benny Morris Benny Morris Morris Benny 2004 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited Cambridge University Press pp 597 ISBN 978 0 521 00967 6 But no expulsion policy was ever enunciated and Ben Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders he preferred that his generals understand what he wanted He probably wished to avoid going down in history as the great expeller and he did not want his government to be blamed for a morally questionable policy Benny Morris 2003 pp 138 139 Benny Morris 2003 p 262 Benny Morris 2003 pp 233 240 Benny Morris 2003 pp 248 252 Benny Morris 2003 pp 423 436 Benny Morris 2003 p 438 Benny Morris 2003 pp 415 423 Benny Morris Righteous Victims p 245 Benny Morris 2003 p 492 Benny Morris 2003 p 538 Bowker 2003 p 81 Gerson 1978 p 162 UN Doc A 8389 of 5 October 1971 Para 57 appearing in the Sunday Times London on 11 October 1970 where reference is made not only to the villages of Jalou Beit Nuba and Imwas also referred to by the Special Committee in its first report but in addition to villages like Surit Beit Awwa Beit Mirsem and El Shuyoukh in the Hebron area and Jiflik Agarith and Huseirat in the Jordan Valley The Special Committee has ascertained that all these villages have been completely destroyed Para 58 the village of Nebi Samwil was in fact destroyed by Israeli armed forces on 22 March 1971 A 8389 of 5 October 1971 Archived from the original on 9 March 2012 Retrieved 14 August 2009 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link a b c Shafeeq Ghabra 8 May 1991 The PLO in Kuwait Kuwait Population Countrystudies us Retrieved 10 February 2016 Yann Le Troquer and Rozenn Hommery al Oudat Spring 1999 From Kuwait to Jordan The Palestinians Third Exodus Journal of Palestine Studies 28 3 37 51 doi 10 2307 2538306 JSTOR 2538306 Jordanians of Kuwait Joshua Project 2013 Palestinians Open Kuwaiti Embassy Al Monitor 23 May 2013 RSS in Syria UNRWA 2013 Retrieved 8 November 2013 Palestine Refugees in Syria A Tale of Devastation and Courage UNRWA Commissioner General Op Ed Question of Palestine Question of Palestine 3 June 2019 Retrieved 19 August 2020 Jordan turns away Palestinian refugees fleeing violence in Syria The Times of Israel 9 January 2013 PFLP GC Thousands from Yarmouk camp have fled to Sweden Archived from the original on 18 December 2014 a b c d e f g UNRWA in figures PDF UNRWA Population in Palestine March 2016 Where We Work UNRWA Retrieved 10 February 2016 Israel News Online Israeli News Covering Israel amp The Jewish World jpost com 8 July 2012 Archived from the original on 8 July 2012 Jordan Stop Withdrawing Nationality from Palestinian Origin Citizens Human Rights Watch Jordan promises to stop revoking citizenship from Palestinians Times of Israel a b c Lebanon Exiled and suffering Palestinian refugees in Lebanon Amnesty International Amnesty International 2007 Archived from the original on 11 December 2013 Retrieved 8 November 2013 Lebanon Gives Palestinians New Work Rights The New York Times 18 August 2010 Simon Haddad The Origins of Popular Opposition to Palestinian Resettlement in Lebanon International Migration Review Volume 38 Number 2 Summer 2004 470 492 Also Peteet 1 Samaha Nour Why are Lebanon s Palestinians leaving for Europe www aljazeera com News Business Palestinian refugees number 175 000 businessnews com lb a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a last has generic name help Lebanon Census Finds Number of Palestinian Refugees Only a Third of Official UN Data Haaretz 25 December 2017 Demonizing Israel is bad for the Palestinians by Mudar Zarhan 01 08 2010 Jerusalem Post 100 000 Palestinians have fled Syria to Europe official says The Jerusalem Post JPost com Expatriates Can Apply for Saudi Citizenship in Two to Three Months Arabnews com 14 February 2005 Retrieved 1 May 2010 Ghafour Abdul 14 February 2005 Expatriates Can Apply for Saudi Citizenship in Two to Three Months Arab News Retrieved 23 December 2022 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR Palestinians bid goodbye to India hello Sweden UNHCR Sweden Iceland absorbing Palestinian refugees CNN com www cnn com United Nations News Centre UN News Service Section 3 July 2007 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR End of long ordeal for Palestinian refugees as desert camp closes UNHCR Miriam Jordan 17 July 2009 U S Agrees to Resettle Palestinians Displaced by Iraq War WSJ Palestinian Iraqi refugees the forgotten victims of Iraq war 5 September 2016 page 68ff PDF fmreview org Archived PDF from the original on 25 February 2017 Ods Home Page PDF Archived from the original PDF on 8 January 2007 Retrieved 20 June 2007 a b United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 PDF United Nations 1948 Archived from the original PDF on 8 January 2007 Retrieved 20 November 2007 Ilan Pappe The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine p 110 Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel GxMSDev I Want This Poem to End A Nakba Commemoration thejerusalemfund org 17 May 2018 Palestinian refugees were excluded from entitlement to citizenship in the State of Israel under the 1952 Citizenship Law They were denationalized and turned into stateless refugees in violation of the law of state succession Archived 25 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Ilan Pappe p 131 Albanese amp Takkenberg 2020 p 183 The vast majority of the Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 continues to live in the places where they initially took refuge Jordan Lebanon Syria as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank Jordan Lebanon and Syria known as the traditional host countries had no choice but to accept the presence of the refugees while the United Nations UN through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNRWA and the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine UNCCP provided them assistance and attempted to negotiate a political solution Smaller groups of refugees who had settled in Egypt and Iraq were assisted by local governments rather than the UN Difficult living conditions in the host countries prompted thousands of refugees to seek better opportunities not only in the Arabian Peninsula but also in North Africa sfn error no target CITEREFAlbaneseTakkenberg2020 help Albanese amp Takkenberg 2020 p 183 184 Arab countries have generally supported Palestinians including refugees in the name of Arab brotherhood and solidarity but at times also despised them as a result of political factors and interests For example in Jordan former King Abdullah s aspiration to modernize the East Bank of the Jordan River and re establish Greater Syria resulted in the annexation of the West Bank in 1950 and the extension of Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians under its control refugees and non refugee alike In Lebanon the Palestinian influx dominated by Sunni Muslims was perceived as a threat to the delicate balance between different religious confessions and the related political status quo In Syria the Palestinian refugees never constituted more than three per cent of the population and their presence was therefore far less sensitive than in Lebanon In North Africa and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula Palestinians were not recognized as refugees as they largely moved there as migrant workers seeking better opportunities rather than international protection Arab rulers generally welcomed them as a much needed work force and also offered political support to their national cause but subliminally despised the political message of freedom and emancipation that their Palestinian ness carried With time Palestinian refugees identity crystalized as a nation in exile but it also became part of the national fabric of some of these countries not only in Jordan and Lebanon but also in Egypt Iraq and Kuwait In the national history of some of those countries Palestinians are somewhat associated with strife and unrest This coupled with lack of application of international human rights and refugee laws as well as a high degree of politicization has compounded their situation While socio economic differences exist across Palestinians in exile and those who have thrived in host communities are all but rare the large majority has come to constitute a politically socially and economically disadvantaged group that has often experienced poverty discrimination and not infrequently persecution because of their nationality including in countries where they were initially well received and either legally or de facto integrated As a result pending the quest for a political settlement many have been forced to move from one country to another often more than once finding themselves going from one unstable situation to the next sfn error no target CITEREFAlbaneseTakkenberg2020 help Albanese amp Takkenberg 2020 p 268 While cases of Palestinians acquiring citizenship in Arab states are not rare with Jordan standing out for conferring its citizenship to a large group of Palestinians en masse they have been ad hoc and are not well documented The subject remains sensitive as it is often perceived as allowing Israel to evade its responsibility towards the refugees In general the treatment has ranged from favourable in certain countries and at given times in history e g in Libya and the Arabian Peninsula until the 1990s and in Iraq until 2003 to discriminatory and often degrading in others such as Lebanon and Egypt after the 1970s as well as many states on multiple occasions since the 1990s Such treatment has also reflected self interest since Palestinians were largely welcome as qualified work force at the time it was needed Political circumstances surrounding the Israeli Palestinian conflict as well as shifts in the relations between Arab states and the Palestinian leadership PLO and PA have often impacted Arab states approach to Palestinians Vindictive policies often aiming at targeting the PLO have resulted in the punishment of hundreds of thousands and the ongoing displacement of many more About 700 000 Palestinians mostly children and grandchildren of the 1948 refugees have been cumulatively displaced from Arab countries alone from the 1970s onward While the legacy of Palestinian militant resistance in a number of Arab countries cannot be ignored as a whole the Palestinian people and the refugees in particular have paid the brunt for the political deadlock sfn error no target CITEREFAlbaneseTakkenberg2020 help Sayyed Tashbih 18 June 2003 Defeat Terrorism First National Review Archived from the original on 29 January 2013 Retrieved 17 June 2010 Yearbook of the United Nations 1948 49 excerpts UNISPAL 31 December 1949 Archived from the original on 21 July 2011 Retrieved 8 August 2009 R Brynen Addressing the Palestinian Refugee Issue A Brief Overview McGill University background paper for the Refugee Coordination Forum Berlin April 2007 p 15 available here 08 08 09 Interview Refugees will not be citizens of new state The Daily Star Newspaper Lebanon The Palestinian Right of Return Abbas Wades into the Morass Time Magazine 6 November 2012 The Right of Return Debate Revisited www washingtoninstitute org Retrieved 10 July 2020 Exile and Return Predicaments of Palestinians and Jews University of Pennsylvania Press 2008 p 36 ISBN 978 0812220520 استطلاع للاجئين في مخيمات لبنان الغالبية تعارض انتخابات تحت الاحتلال ولا تثق بقدرة ابو مازن Saida City Net 2 January 2005 Retrieved 9 December 2014 Text 1993 Declaration of Principles 29 November 2001 via news bbc co uk According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency the main body tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees there are more than 5 million refugees at present However the number of Palestinians alive who were personally displaced during the 1948 Arab Israeli War is estimated to be around 30 000 US Senate dramatically scales down definition of Palestinian refugees Sources Books Albanese Francesca P Takkenberg Lex 2020 Palestinian Refugees in International Law OUP Oxford ISBN 978 0 19 108678 6 BADIL 2015 Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2013 2015 Esber Rosemarie M 2008 Under the Cover of War the Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians Arabicus Books amp Media ISBN 978 0 9815131 7 1 Gelber Yoav 2006 Palestine 1948 Sussex Academic Press ISBN 1 84519 075 0 Gerson Allan 1978 Israel the West Bank and International Law Routledge ISBN 0 7146 3091 8 Gunness Chris 2011 Exploding the myths UNRWA UNHCR and the Palestine refugees Ma an News Agency McDowall David 1989 Palestine and Israel The Uprising and Beyond I B Tauris ISBN 1 85043 289 9 Morris Benny 2003 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 00967 7 Morris Benny 1948 A History of the First Arab Israeli War 2009 Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 15112 1 Reiter Yitzhak National Minority Regional Majority Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution 2009 Syracuse Univ Press Sd ISBN 978 0 8156 3230 6 Pappe Ilan 2006 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine London and New York Oneworld 2006 ISBN 1 85168 467 0 Segev Tom 2007 1967 Israel The War and the Year that Transformed the Middle East Little Brown ISBN 978 0 316 72478 4 Seliktar Ofira 2002 Divided We Stand American Jews Israel and the Peace Process Praeger Greenwood ISBN 0 275 97408 1 Tovy Jacob 2014 Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Issue The Formulation of a Policy 1948 1956 Routledge UNDPI 2008 The Question of Palestine and the United Nations PDF DPI 2499 UNRWA UNHCR 2007 The United Nations and Palestinian Refugees PDF Bowker Robert 2003 Palestinian Refugees Mythology Identity and the Search for Peace Lynne Rienner Publishers ISBN 978 1 58826 202 8 Rosemarie M Esber 2008 Under the Cover of War The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians Arabicus Books amp Media ISBN 978 0 9815131 7 1 Dumper Michael 2006 Introduction Palestinian Refugee Repatriation Global Perspectives Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 0 415 38497 1 Chiller Glaus Michael 2007 Tackling the Intractable Palestinian Refugees and the Search for Middle East Peace Peter Lang ISBN 978 3 03911 298 2 Morris Benny 2001 Righteous Victims A History of the Zionist Arab conflict 1881 2001 1st Vintage Books ed New York Vintage Books pp 252 258 ISBN 978 0 679 74475 7 Other Goldberg Ari Ben 25 May 2012 US Senate dramatically scales down definition of Palestinian refugees The Times of Israel Retrieved 11 November 2020 Palestine refugees UNRWA UNRWA Retrieved 11 November 2020 Frequently asked questions UNRWA Retrieved 9 August 2020 A RES 194 III of 11 December 1948 unispal un org UNISPAL External links source source Interview on Palestinian refugees on This Week In Palestine radio show UNRWA Palestinian refugee statistics Google map of 58 UNRWA camps with descriptions and photos UN refugee agency unveils Palestinian archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Palestinian refugees amp oldid 1132424643, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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