3.1 Palestinian Refugees: Refugee Rights and Self-Determination are Indivisible Palestinian refugees, constituting 66.4 percent of the Palestinian people,24 must inevitably be included in practicing Palestinian self-determination. Excluding Palestinian refugees whom have been forced to live outside the borders of Palestine in exile (approximately 7 million out of 13.7 million Palestinians), from exercising self-determination would not, per se, constitute self-determination as it is a collective right owed to a people in its entirety. Refugees’ inclusion, however, will only be possible through their physical presence in the land. As such, a necessary prerequisite to the realization of self-determination is the fulfillment of the primary durable solution that Palestinian refugees are entitled to under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194(III), that is return to their homes, real property restitution, and compensation. 25 Refugees’ return, which will allow for all the Palestinian people to exist in Mandatory Palestine, is a legal necessity that will enable the appropriate realization of Palestinian self-determination. Israel, by denying Palestinian refugee rights, is not only perpetuating the protractedness of the Palestinian refugee issue, but is also undermining the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination as their inability to physically be in Mandatory Palestine prevents the Palestinian people from exercising the right to self-determination. The denial of return thus amounts, in the Palestine context, to a violation of the right to selfdetermination, which amounts to a serious breach of international law. The right to self-determination, recognized as a peremptory norm principle of international law in Article 1(2) and Article 55 of the United Nations Charter of 1945,26 evolved into a full-fledged peremptory norm through the decolonization 24 BADIL, Nakba Statement: 73 years of Nakba and 73 years of resistance, press release, 15 May 2021, available at: https://www.badil.org/press-releases/8864.html [accessed 1 November 2021]. 25 UNGA, 194 (III). Palestine – Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, A/RES/194 (III), 11 December 1948, available at: https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/C758572B78D1CD0085256BCF0077E51A [accessed 1 November 2021]. 26 Charter of the UN, Article 2(4), in supra 21. 10