Who are Palestinian Refugees and IDPs? To this day, around two-thirds of the total Palestinian population worldwide are forcibly displaced persons. They are those Palestinians who have been displaced as a result of the ongoing Zionist Israeli policy of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians,’ and who are still denied their right to reparations (i.e. return, restitution and compensation). From a legal perspective, forcibly displaced Palestinians can be divided into two main groups - refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Under international law, especially refugee law, labels play a key role: to fall into a certain legal category means to be entitled to certain rights. To understand the peculiarities - and the shortcomings - that makes the case of displaced Palestinians unique and dissimilar to all other displaced populations, it is imperative to clarify how they are framed under international law. Palestinian refugees Due to a multitude of political and historical factors, there currently lacks a comprehensive and universally-accepted definition of Palestinian refugees. The most commonly referred to definition is the one provided by the UNRWA, which identifies Palestine refugees as “persons whose normal 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” -including then also Palestinian IDPs.1 Unlike the global definition provided by Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention,2 UNRWA’s definition fails to properly define 1 UNRWA, Palestine refugees, n.d., available at: https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees [accessed 4 June 2018]. 2 Article 1(2) defines refugees as persons who “as a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it; UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 UNTS 150, 28 July 1951, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/protection/ basic/3b66c2aa10/convention-protocol-relating-status-refugees.html [accessed 20 September 2018] [hereinafter Refugee Convention]. 11