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How many Palestinian refugees are there?
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Palestinian refugees are one of the largest displaced populations in the world. Two out of every five refugees in the world today are Palestinian.
In May 2006, the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights published a Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2004-2005, one of the most comprehensive surveys of the Palestinian refugee population to date. At the end of 2005, there were approximately 6.8 million Palestinian refugees and 400,000 internally displaced Palestinians, representing 70 percent of the entire Palestinian population worldwide (9.7 million). This includes six million refugees from 1948 (of whom 4.3 million are registered with UNRWA); 834,000 refugees from 1967; 400,000 Palestinians displaced after 1967and who likely qualify as refugees; 345,000 internally displaced Palestinians from 1948 in Israel; and, another 57,000 internally displaced in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories.
Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendents comprise the bulk of the Palestinian refugee population today numbering six million persons and constituting nearly two-thirds of the Palestinian people. If one includes Palestinians displaced for the first time in the 1967 war and internally displaced Palestinians inside Israel, approximately three-quarters of the Palestinian people have been uprooted from their traditional lands over the past five decades, making Palestinian refugees the largest and one of the longest-standing, unresolved refugee cases in the world today.
The Palestinian refugee diaspora spreads around the world. More than half a million Palestinian refugees reside outside the Middle East in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere. The majority of Palestinian refugees, however, live within 100 miles of the borders of Occupied Palestine in neighboring Arab host states.
Until 1948, most Palestinian Arabs lived in Palestine. As of 2005, half of the Palestinian people, comprising more than 4.8 million Palestinians, were living in areas outside the borders of historical Palestine. This radical transformation in demography has occurred largely through displacement and expulsion during periods of armed conflict and subsequent denationalization of Palestinian refugees.
Until 1948 Palestinian Arabs owned most of the land in Palestine. As of 2005, Palestinian Arabs own or control only 12 percent of the land in former Palestine. The transformation in the control and "ownership" of land occurred largely through mass expropriation of Palestinian-owned property, which is now held by Israel as the inalienable property of the Jewish people.
The United Nations General Assembly set forth the specific framework for resolving the Palestinian refugee case in UN Resolution 194 (III). The resolution affirms the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands.
This resolution was adopted on December 11, 1948 and has been reaffirmed almost every year for the past 56 years. In addition, Article 13 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reaffirms the right of every individual to return to his or her ancestral homes.
Israel's ethnic cleansing policies are still ongoing. The construction of Israel's apartheid Wall as well as the destruction of refugee housing in Gaza has accelerated Palestinian internal displacement
Less than 1 percent of the Palestinian refugee population has been permitted to return home.
Sources: BADIL Center for Palestinian Palestinian Residence and Refugee Rights, UNRWA
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