Topic summary
Palestinian refugees
In 1949, UNRWA formally defined the term "Palestine refugee" to refer to any Palestinian citizen or the descendant of any male Palestinian citizen who—if their regular place of residence was located within Mandatory Palestine between 1 June 1946 and 15 May 1948—was found to have "lost both home and means of livelihood" during the 1948 Palestine war. While this definition originally included Arab Palestinians displaced from or within Israel as well as Jewish Palestinians displaced from Arab-controlled territory, it ceased to apply to Arabs and Jews who became Israeli citizens in 1952; Arab Palestinians who were displaced from their homes while ultimately remaining within Israeli territory were instead designated as "present absentees" and not subject to UNRWA's jurisdiction. In addition to more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled by Israel before the 1949 Armistice Agreements, another 285,000 to 325,000 Palestinians were displaced due to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
As of 2019, more than 5.6 million Palestinians were registered with UNRWA as refugees, of whom more than 1.5 million were living in UNRWA-run camps; UNRWA's assistance is limited to Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip), Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. According to some estimates, as many as 1,050,000 to 1,380,000 people who are descendants of the displaced citizens of Mandatory Palestine are not registered under UNRWA or UNHCR mandates.
Palestinian refugees are the modern world's oldest unsettled refugee population, having been under the ongoing governance of various Arab countries following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the refugee populations of the West Bank under Israeli governance since 1967 and Palestinian Authority administration since the 1995 Oslo II Accord, and the Gaza Strip administered by 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; 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. 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 during Assad's rule afforded them the same economic and social rights enjoyed by Syrian citizens; they were also drafted into the Armed Forces despite not being citizens. 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 is understood by some parties to establish a UN position that of Palestinian right to return, but this interpretation is contested.