The Mission of the State of Palestine would like to share this briefing with you as we commemorate 72 years since Nakba. The Nakba was a process of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948 when 950,000 Palestinians were forcibly uprooted from their homeland and scattered all over the world.

For the past 72 years, Israel has been refusing to implement United Nations Resolution 194 and preventing more than 6,171,793 refugees from different parts of the world from exercising their legal and natural right of return to their homes. The attached report from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics shows how the population of Palestinian refugees has increased 9-fold in the years since the Nakba.

Israel’s prolonged occupation and its policies commit continued violations of refugee rights.

Most recently, Israel and the Trump administration have targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in an attempt to eliminate the agency and drain its financial resources in preparation for liquidating the refugee issue.

This briefing outlines:

• In 2018, the US administration began to politicise the work of UNRWA in preparation for its disbandment and the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in other host countries;
• UNRWA had to launch an emergency appeal to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic because of the subsequent underfunding;
• Alongside UNRWA’s financial encirclement, the occupation authorities attempted to block the work of the agency on the ground, closing schools and demolishing a covid-19 station among other offences;
• Israeli violations against refugees continue unabated including killings, arrests, assaults using tear gas and live ammunition and incursions into camps;
• Personal testimonies from Palestinian refugees in the camps or in exile.

The emergency conditions that Palestine refugees have been experiencing for the past seventy-two years oblige the international community to hold Israel accountable and responsible for its violations against refugees. Since its establishment, Israel has failed to implement United Nations resolutions and to respect international law. International efforts should be doubled towards finding a political and just solution that can finally end Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine.