In addition to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled from their homes and villages during the Nakba that led to the creation of the State of Israel, nearly 400,000 Palestinians were forced to flee from their homes—many for the second time—during the 1967 Six Day War and its aftermath.  

Today, there are an estimated eight million Palestinian refugees inside and outside of refugee camps who have been refused the right to return to their homes despite recognition of this right by international law and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948). 

This Resolution states that  “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”  

Resolution 194 has been repeatedly affirmed by the UN, including by the US government until 1993. The Palestinian Right of Return is symbolized by a key.  

While Palestinian refugees languish in 58 official refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, all Jews in the world are eligible under Israel’s 1950 Law of Return to come to Israel and be fast-tracked to Israeli citizenship. 

More than six million Palestinians are registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which was established in 1949 to provide camp residents with schooling, healthcare, and social services. Israel has long been critical of UNRWA for keeping refugee claims alive, arguing that this perpetuates the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Resistance to the Israeli occupation has over the decades been most formidable in the Gaza Strip, where 70 percent of the population are refugees and their descendants living in eight refugee camps.   

After the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel asserted without providing evidence that some UNRWA employees had been among the attackers and that UNRWA facilities had been used to store weapons, claims that were strongly denied by UNRWA.  Despite the lack of evidence Israel has used the war as an opportunity to shut down UNRWA’s operations within its sovereign borders and refuse any contact with UNRWA staff, depriving many Palestinian refugees of a critical humanitarian lifeline.    

See Also

For more about right of return, see this document from the American Friends Service Committee.