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Palestinian refugees and
internally displaced persons are one of the largest displaced
populations in the world today. Approximately one in three refugees
worldwide is Palestinian.
Who are Palestinian
refugees?
There are five primary groups
of Palestinian refugees and displaced persons. The largest group
is comprised of those Palestinians displaced/expelled from their places
of origin in 1948. This includes Palestinian refugees who receive
international assistance from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA),
i.e., ‘registered refugees’; and Palestinian refugees not eligible for
international assistance.
The second major group of Palestinian refugees is comprised of
those Palestinians displaced for the first time from their places of
origin in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip (often
referred to as ‘1967 displaced persons’).
The third category of refugees includes those Palestinian
refugees who are neither 1948 or 1967 refugees and are outside the
Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967 and unable due to
revocation of residency, denial of family reunification, deportation,
etc., or unwilling to return there owing to a well-founded fear of
persecution.
In addition, there are two groups of internally displaced
Palestinians. The first includes internally displaced Palestinians who
remained in the area that became the state of Israel in 1948. The second
group of internally displaced Palestinians includes Palestinians
internally displaced in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza
Strip.
How many
refugees are there?
Available data on the
Palestinian refugee and displaced population is characterized by uneven
quality and uncertainty primarily due to the absence of a comprehensive
registration system, frequent migration for political and economic
reasons, and the lack of a uniform definition of a Palestine refugee.
Generally, most Palestinian refugees are considered to be prima facie
refugees (i.e., in the absence of evidence to the contrary).
The UN Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) administers the only registration system for Palestinian
refugees. UNRWA records, however, only include those refugees displaced
in 1948 (and their descendents) in need of assistance and located in
UNRWA areas of operation - West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and
Syria. Estimates of the refugee and displaced population may also be
derived from statistics maintained by the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); census data from host countries and
Israel; and, population growth projections.
It is estimated that there
were
more than 7 million Palestinian refugees and displaced persons at the
beginning of 2003.
This includes Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and registered for
assistance with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) (3.97 million);
Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 but not registered for assistance
(1.54 million); Palestinian refugees displaced for the first time in
1967 (753,000); 1948 internally displaced Palestinians (274,000);
and, 1967 internally displaced Palestinians (150,000).
Where do
refugees live?
Palestinian refugees
have tended to remain as close as possible to their homes and villages
of origin based on the assumption that they will return with the
cessation of conflict. In 1948 an estimated 65 percent of Palestinian
refugees remained in areas of Palestine not under Israeli control –
i.e., the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the 1967 war the majority of
Palestinian refugees found refuge in Jordan. Information on the
distribution of Palestinians displaced within and from the occupied
territories since 1967 is less well documented.
Despite the changes in the pattern
of distribution of Palestinian refugees over the last fifty years,
however, the majority of the refugees still live within 100 km of the
borders of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip where their homes of
origin are located. Palestinian refugees residing in host states in the
region comprise approximately the same percentage of the total
combined population (6 percent) of the area as they did following the
first wave of massive displacement in 1948.
Palestinian refugees
have also been displaced within and from host countries.
More than one and a quarter million
Palestinian refugees reside in 59 official refugee camps located in the
West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. There are a
smaller number of unofficial refugee camps.
The large number of
Palestinians remaining in camps after more than five decades of exile
can be explained by several factors:
family and village support structure in the camp; lack
of resources to rent or buy alternative accommodation outside the camp;
lack of living space outside the camp due to overcrowding; legal,
political, and social obstacles which compel refugees to remain in the
camp; physical safety; and,
the refugee camp as a symbol of the temporary nature of exile and the
demand to exercise the right of return.
How did
Palestinians become refugees?
The majority of Palestinians
became refugees during armed conflict and war in Palestine. Sources
of flight include indiscriminate attacks on civilians, massacres,
looting, destruction of property (including entire villages), and forced
expulsion. Israeli military forces adopted 'shoot to kill' policies
along the armistice lines to prevent the return of refugees. In some
cases refugees were forced to sign papers that they were leaving
voluntarily. In 1948, it is estimated that more than fifty percent fled
under direct military assault. Sixty percent of refugees displaced to
Jordan in 1967 fled as a result of direct military assault.
In 1948 eighty-five percent of
the Palestinians living in the areas that became the state of Israel
became refugees. More than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and
later destroyed to prevent the return of the refugees. These comprised
three-quarters of the Palestinian villages inside the areas held by
Israeli forces after the end of the war. In the districts of Jaffa,
Ramla and Bir Saba' not one Palestinian village was left standing.
Approximately thirty-five percent of the Palestinian population of the West
Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip were expelled during the 1967
war. Two percent of villages were destroyed, as well as several refugee
camps.
A smaller number of
Palestinians have become refugees due to policies and practices akin to
low-intensity transfer. These include expulsion, deportation, revocation
of residency rights, denial of family reunification, land confiscation,
and house demolition. Between 1948 and the mid-1950s Israel expelled around fifteen
percent of the Palestinian population that remained after the war. By
1967 it had expropriated half of the land owned by Palestinian citizens
of the state. Israel deported more than 6,000 Palestinians from 1967
occupied Palestine between 1967 and the early 1990s, revoked the
residency rights of some 100,000, demolished 20,000 homes and refugee
shelters, and confiscated several thousand square kilometers of land.
Why are
Palestinians still refugees after 50 years?
Palestinian refugees are still
refugees because they are unable to exercise their basic human right to
return to their homes of origin. Israel refuses to allow the refugees to
return to villages, towns and cities inside Israel due to the ethnic,
national and religious origin of the refugees. Israel defines itself as
a Jewish state and not a state of all its citizens. This
self-definition emphasizes the need for a permanent Jewish majority,
Jewish control of key resources like land, and the link between Israel
and the Jewish diaspora. Jewish citizens, residents and the Jewish
diaspora are therefore granted special preferences to citizenship and
land ownership.
Israel's laws prevent
Palestinian refugees and IDPs from returning to their homes of origin. Palestinians must be able to prove that they were in the state of
Israel on or after 14 July 1952, or the offspring of a Palestinian who
meets this condition. Due to the fact that most Palestinian refugees
were displaced outside the territory of the state of Israel on or after
this date, they are unable to resume domicile in their homeland.
Israel's longstanding occupation of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem,
and Gaza Strip and related military orders and administrative procedures
prevents refugees from returning to these areas. Emergency regulations,
abandoned property laws, military orders and other administrative
measures alienate refugees from their land which has been transferred to
the state of Israel and the Jewish National Fund as the inalienable
property of the Jewish people.
The international community
has not exerted sufficient political will to advance durable solutions
consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions. Refugee
rights have been absent from the Middle East Peace Process
since it began in Madrid in the early 1990s. Unlike peace agreements
elsewhere, agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) are based solely on an agreed-upon political process
between the parties. International law does not provide a framework for
conflict resolution and the regulation of future relations between the
parties. There is no explicit reference to the right of Palestinian
refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes of origin. Nor
is there explicit reference to the right to housing and property
restitution. The agreements only establish fora in which the parties
agree to discuss the future status of Palestinian refugees. |
