By BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
On 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted, setting forth the fundamental rights afforded to individuals under international law, including the right to return. The very next day, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 , affirming Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons’ right to reparation (return to their homes, property restitution, compensation and socio-economic rehabilitation). 76 years on, the Palestinian people are not only denied the fulfillment of these rights, but face a far-reaching dismantlement campaign against their very refugee status and the UN agency mandated to protect their basic rights and dignity, UNRWA. This threat to the Palestinian refugee question and the rights of Palestine refugees enshrined under international law, magnified by the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, has been enabled by complicit colonial states and the impunity they have conferred on “Israel”, as well as the inaction of other duty bearers.
The UDHR and UNGA Resolution 194 were both discussed and written during the 1948 Nakba by the same states’ representatives, which ultimately influenced the drafting of the documents. This included Article 13(2) of the UDHR which provided that “[e]veryone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” and Resolution 194 which reaffirms Palestine refugees’ fundamental right to reparations, including return to their original homes. Despite the impact of Palestinian forcible displacement on the letter of Article 13(2) of the UDHR, their right of return is yet to be realized.
Beyond that, Palestinians continue to face a systematic policy of forced displacement and transfer at the hands of the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime as part of the ongoing Nakba. In the Gaza Strip, forced displacement has been used by “Israel” as a tool in its genocide , as Palestinians face the biggest wave of displacement since 1948. The Israeli regime’s “evacuation” orders and relentless bombing campaign have forcibly displaced 1.9 Palestinians, the majority of whom are 1948 refugees. Just as Zionist militias did in the 1948 Nakba, the Israeli regime has been destroying homes, hospitals, schools, bakeries, farms and all semblance of life, ensuring that the Gaza Strip is unlivable and that internally displaced persons (IDPs) could not return to their homes. In the West Bank, since the launch of the Israeli genocide in October 2023, more than 6,300 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
One of the most important safeguards of the Palestinian refugee issue is UNRWA, a UN agency mandated with providing aid and services to Palestinian refugees until the implementation of Resolution 194. Since the beginning of the genocide, Israel has been critically escalating its campaign to dismantle and replace UNRWA . In October 2024, the Israeli Knesset passed two laws that will ultimately result in the end of UNRWA’s existence and operations in Mandatory Palestine, and are expected to come into effect in January 2025. The Israeli regime’s attacks on the Agency have also manifested materially, with 251 UNRWA staff members having been killed and 190 of its installations damaged. All of this serves Israel’s goals to carry out its genocide, forcibly displace those who it has not killed outside the Gaza Strip, and ultimately eliminate UNRWA and the Palestinian refugee question.
Amid the ongoing Nakba , a genocide in the Gaza Strip, and in the face of a dismantlement campaign against a UN-mandated agency, states have done nothing but pay lip service to the UN and the principles enshrined in the UDHR. Not only have Western colonial states refused to apply international law and UN accountability mechanisms to “Israel”, but they also have continuously aided and abetted “Israel’s” forcible transfer laws, policies and practices, thereby entrenching its colonial-apartheid regime over the Palestinian people. As “Israel” passed the law banning UNRWA, states were only satisfied with voicing their “concern” and condemnations. States’ inaction and complicity in the face of the widening protection gap for Palestinian refugees contradicts all legal and moral obligations they must uphold. The threat against UNRWA and the Palestinian refugee question only increases with the re-election of Trump, as the implementation of his vision, per the “Deal of the Century” , would include the transfer of UNRWA tasks and services to host countries and unmandated international organizations, and the denial of Palestine refugees’ right to return and reparations.
BADIL calls on the international community—states, international organizations, including the UN, as well as non-profits and the private sector—to take decisive, concrete actions to impose a ceasefire in Gaza, protect UNRWA and Palestinian refugee and IDP rights, and until the decolonization of Palestine. This includes recognizing “Israel” as a colonial-apartheid regime, providing support to the Palestinian liberation movement, and implementing the full spectrum of sanctions against “Israel”, i.e., economic, political, and military. BADIL urges the Palestinian leadership, political forces and organizations to reject and criminalize the replacement of UNRWA. As for the solidarity movement, we reiterate the importance of escalating your actions to pressure your states to enforce a ceasefire, end their complicity in “Israel’s” genocide, and implement UN Resolution 194.
11 December 2024
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights is an independent, human rights non-profit organization committed to defend and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons.