Legal briefing on the rights of stateless Palestinians in the UK September 2025 1. Palestinians and the search for protection 1.1. The need for protection: historical context and terminology With millions of Palestinian refugees worldwide and over 90% of the population in Gaza forcibly displaced, Palestinians constitute the longest standing refugee population in the world.5 The circumstances leading to such a large number of refugees with origins in Palestine can be traced back to the United Nations (UN) Resolution 181 which, following the Second World War and the end of the British occupation of Palestine, recommended that the Palestinian territory be partitioned into two States, Arab and Jewish, with each having a constitution to provide equal rights to all inhabitants and with no forcible transfer of populations.6 However, in 1948, Israel declared its State, and claimed much more of the former Mandate territory than was allocated to the Jewish State in UN Resolution 181. This led to the forced displacement of approximately 800,000 Palestinians in what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba. In December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194, resolving that Palestine refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so.7 The resolution has never been implemented. Instead, it was followed by the occupation of the remainder of Mandatory Palestine by Israel and successive armed conflicts, including the 1967 War, during which a further approximately 500,000 Palestinians were displaced.8 Following the initial displacement of Palestinians in 1948, a separate protection regime was created for Palestinian refugees, who were excluded from the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and instead fell under the responsibility of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).9 The former was established with a mandate to facilitate durable solutions and legal protection for Palestine refugees, but concluded early into its existence that it was unable to fulfil its mandate and has been effectively inactive ever since.10 While UNRWA’s mandate to provide humanitarian assistance has evolved to include limited protection activities, it does not include the pursuit of durable solutions such as resettlement or repatriation, nor certain other aspects of protection, thus creating a protection gap in the international legal framework for Palestinian refugees.11 UNRWA’s capacity to fulfil its mandate is directly impeded, and at times made impossible, by lack of funding and deliberate 5 BADIL, Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2019-2021, Volume X (2022) p xii; BADIL, Press Release, ‘77 Years of Ongoing Nakba: Resisting Ongoing Forcible Displacement’ (2025); UNHCR, Global Trends Report (2024), 6 UN General Assembly (UNGA), Resolution 181(II) UN Doc A/RES/181(II) (29 Nov 1947). For more detail on the history of Palestinian displacement, see ENS and BADIL, Palestinians and the Search for Protection (fn 4) pp 2-4; BADIL, Closing Protection Gaps: A Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees in States Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention (2nd ed, 2015); BADIL, Survey 2019-2021 (fn 5). 7 Palestine: Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator, GA Res 194(III), UN Doc A/RES/194(III) (27 November 1948), para 11. 8 United Nations, ‘History of the Question of Palestine’ (accessed 2 September 2025); BADIL, Survey 2019-2021 (fn 5) p 1-18. 9 The UNCCP was established in accordance with UNGA Resolution 194(III), UN Doc A/RES/194(III) (Palestine: Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator) (27 November 1948); UNRWA’s mandate was established in UNGA, Resolution 302 (IV) (Assistance to Palestine Refugees) (8 December 1949). 10 See UNGA, ‘Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, covering the period from 23 January to 19 November 1951’ UN Doc A/1367/Rev.1 (1951), para 79; UNCCP Annual Report, in which it stated that it had ‘nothing new to report’: UN Doc A/80/295 (5 Aug 2025). See also BADIL, Survey 2019-2021 (fn 5) p. 75-79. 11 ‘Operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East’, UNGA Resolution 70/85, UN Doc A/RES/70/85 (15 December 2015); BADIL, Closing Protection Gaps (fn 5); Guy Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2007), 436-38; UNRWA, 'What We Do: Protection’ (accessed 2 September 2025). 4