Mandatory Palestine: Refers to historic Palestine - the whole land of Palestine before the Nakba, when Palestine was still under the British Mandate. However, the British Mandate’s decision to end the mandate left the question of Palestine to the UN. Following this act was the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the creation of Israel. Mandatory Palestine is considered to be what is today called Israel as well as the oPt. Nakba: An Arabic term meaning “catastrophe,” referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 due to colonization, ethnic cleansing, massacres, and terrorist acts committed by Zionist militias and Israel. Occupation: A temporary situation, where an alien power controls another region that belongs to another people/state. Due to its temporary nature, it is regulated by international humanitarian law so as the occupying power, according to article 43 of the Hague Regulations, is under an obligation to “take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country”.ix While people of occupied territory retain sovereignty, the occupying power is prohibited from annexation and changing the legal status of the territory. Occupied Palestinian territory (oPt): This refers to the area of Mandatory Palestine that was occupied by Israel in 1967 (approximately 22 percent). The total area of the oPt is 6,225 km2, which includes the West Bank (including occupied and annexed East Jerusalem), with an area of 5,860 km2, and the Gaza Strip, with an area of 365 km2. Ongoing Nakba: A continuing phenomenon that was initiated well before the period of the 1947-1949 Nakba, accompanied with the beginning of the colonization of Palestine during the British Mandate, and extending well into today. The Ongoing Nakba describes the perpetual colonization enterprise and its pillars, which are maintained and upheld through a plethora of Zionist-Israeli policies, practices, and laws that perpetrate population transfers to alter the demographic and geographic composition of Mandatory Palestine. This phenomenon continuously results in the creation, sustainment, and augmentation of the longest standing refugee population in the world. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): The body formed in May 1964 to represent the Palestinian people and restitute their rights in their historic homeland as set forth in the Palestine National Charter. The two most important institutions of the PLO are the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the legislative body representing the Palestinian people in Mandatory Palestine and in exile, and its 15-18 member Executive Committee. The PLO includes economic and social institutions, and the multiple unions into which Palestinians have organized themselves. The PLO holds permanent observer status with the UN General Assembly.x PLO institutions have been largely dormant since the establishment of the ix x xii Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and Its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907), art 43 <https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp ?action=openDocument&documentId=3741EAB8E36E9274C12563CD00516894> accessed 3 October 2022. Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations New York, ‘Status of Palestine’ (Palestine UN, 1 August 2013) <http://palestineun.org/status-of-palestine-at-the-united-nations/> accessed 3 October 2022.