1. Palestinian Refugees, UN Institutions, and Durable Solutions While the approximately 9.1 million Palestinian refugees constitute the longest persisting and largest refugee population in the world,5 only about 5.7 million are considered “Palestine refugees,” eligible for UNRWA services. UNRWA defines “Palestine refugees” as “persons whose normal place of 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” (and their descendants in the male line).6 UNRWA operates in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Other Palestinian refugees live outside UNRWA’s area of operation.7 The circumstances leading to the existence of such a large number of refugees with origins in Palestine are documented elsewhere by BADIL and others, and will be discussed below to some extent. In brief, Palestine was occupied by the United Kingdom from 1917 to 1947. Following World War II, in 1947, the United Nations (UN) recommended in Resolution 181 that the Palestinian territory be partitioned into two states, Arab and Jewish. Each state was required to have a constitution providing equal rights to all inhabitants, and there was to be no forcible transfer of populations.8 However, what followed, known to Palestinians as the Nakba, was rather different from the situation envisioned in Resolution 181. Israel declared its state in 1948, claiming much more of the former Mandate territory than was allocated to the Jewish state in Resolution 181, and displacing approximately 800,000 Palestinians in the process. Other former Palestinian Mandate areas were occupied by Jordan and Egypt.9 In December 1948, the UN adopted Resolution 194, resolving that Palestine “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.”10 This has never been implemented, however, and was followed by successive armed conflicts, occupation by Israel of the remainder of Mandatory Palestine, and further forced displacement of Palestinians.11 Many Palestinians in and outside Palestine have faced and continue to face discrimination, persecution, multiple displacements, and insecurity of various types, including statelessness.12 5 BADIL, ‘Nakba Statement: 74 years of the Ongoing Nakba, 74 years of Ongoing Resistance’ https://badil.org/pressreleases/13095.html [accessed 30 June 2022], citing 9.1 million Palestinian refugees worldwide at the end of 2021. See also BADIL, Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2016 – 2018, n 3, Ch. 2, estimating 13.05 Palestinians globally, of whom 8.7 million were forcibly displaced persons (7.94 million refugees and 760,000 internally displaced persons). 6 UNRWA, ‘Palestine Refugees’ https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees [accessed 30 June 2022]. Although only the descendants of Palestine refugee men are eligible for UNRWA registration, descendants and dependants in the female line can receive UNRWA services (since 2006). See Francesca P Albanese and Lex Takkenberg, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (2nd Ed) (Oxford Public International Law, 2020), Part One (II), S. 4.2.3. See also UNHCR, Guidelines on International Protection No. 13: Applicability of Article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to Palestinian Refugees, (HCR/GIP/17/13) (Dec 2017), https://www.unhcr.org/uk/publications/legal/5ddfca844/guidelines-international-protection-13applicability-article-1d-1951-convention.html, Para 8. 7 BADIL, Launch of BADIL’s Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2016-2019, 9th Edition (PR/ EN/111219/61), https://badil.org/press-releases/762.html [accessed 30 June 2022]; Susan M Akram, ‘UNRWA and Palestine Refugees’ in The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (Eds: Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster, and Jane McAdam, OUP, June 2021); UNRWA, Letter from UNRWA to UNHCR describing UNRWA’s mandate and services, 22 September 2021, https://www.refworld.org/docid/61541acb4.html [hereinafter, ‘UNRWA Letter 2021’]. 8 See Future Government of Palestine, GA Res 181(II), UN Doc A/RES/181(II) (29 Nov 1947). 9 See BADIL, Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2016 – 2018, n 4. 10 Palestine: Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, GA Res 194(III), UN Doc A/RES/194(III) (27 November 1948), para 11. 11 United Nations, ‘History of the Question of Palestine’, United Nations: The Question of Palestine https://www.un.org/unispal/ history/; and Susan Akram and Nidal al-Azza (eds), Closing Protection Gaps: Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees in States Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention (2nd ed) (BADIL, 2015) [hereinafter, ‘BADIL, Closing Protection Gaps’]. For maps showing the evolution of the territories of Israel and Palestine, see L Farsakh, Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: SelfDetermination and Decolonization Beyond Partition (Ed L Farsakh, University of California Press, 2021), pp xiii-xvi of foreword. 12 BADIL, Palestinian Refugees: Multiple Displacements and the Issue of Protection (Al Majdal, Issue 59, Mar 2017) https:// www.badil.org/press-releases/837.html [accessed 30 June 2022]. Throughout this report, ‘nationality’ means the legal bond of citizenship of a person to a particular state, and correlates conversely to the definition of statelessness in Article I(1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, which defines a stateless person as someone ‘who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law’. 2