PALESTINE

KEY ISSUES ON PALESTINE AND STATELESSNESS

• Following the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and the establishment of Israel, Palestinians face a cycle of inter-generational refugeehood and statelessness that continues to this day.

• The “statelessness” of Palestinians is the product of a deliberate political strategy by Israel to obstruct the Palestinian people’s exercise of their right to self-determination and deny Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) their recognised right of return to their homeland.

• Despite the 1965 Casablanca Protocol, which aimed to secure rights to work, travel, and residency for Palestinian refugees in Arab states, inconsistent enforcement has left many Palestinians without legal protection or recognition.

• Palestinian refugees are systematically excluded from the protections offered under international refugee law, including the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1954 Statelessness Convention, leaving them without effective legal safeguards both inside historic Palestine and in host countries. 

• A distinct protection and assistance framework (UNCCP & UNRWA) was created to address the question of Palestine, yet displaced Palestinians continue to face significant and expanding gaps in legal protection and durable solutions.

• The denial of nationality to Palestinians reinforces broader patterns of control and legal hegemony, linking statelessness directly to the ongoing denial of Palestinian right to self-determination. 

• Intergenerational statelessness perpetuates legal and political marginalisation, as successive generations of Palestinians remain excluded from formal institutions and basic rights due to Israeli settler-colonialism, forced displacement, and apartheid. 

PALESTINE AND THE QUESTION OF STATELESSNESS

Palestinians are often referred to as the world's largest stateless population, with an estimated global population of approximately 14.9 million people, nearly half of whom live outside historic Palestine. This “statelessness” stems from mass forced displacement during the 1948 Nakba and subsequent waves of displacement, and ongoing military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, leaving many Palestinians without recognised citizenship and subjected to complex legal and political statuses. The question of Palestinian statelessness is multifaceted, shaped not only by legal and political conditions but also by collective memory, history, and national identity. While many Palestinians are deprived of legal recognition as citizens, this does not erase their sense of belonging or national identity. For countless Palestinians, identity is rooted in shared history and attachment to their homeland, creating a form of belonging that exists independently of state recognition. In this sense, the lived reality of Palestinian identity resists the confines of legal definitions; Palestinians maintain a profound sense of collective continuity, community, and historical rootedness that challenges the very notion that statelessness can fully capture their lived experience. 

From a legal perspective, Palestinian statelessness is not merely the absence of nationality but the systematic denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and statehood. Before the Nakba, Palestinians held Ottoman and then Palestine Mandate citizenship under the 1925 Palestine Citizenship Order. Israel’s Nationality Law of 1952 repealed this order and imposed separate criteria for Jews and Arabs, deliberately excluding displaced Palestinians. By 1952, nearly a million Palestinians were effectively stripped of citizenship en masse, with return efforts violently obstructed.

Nationality signifies legal membership in a sovereign community; when sovereignty is deliberately blocked, statelessness becomes a tool of domination. In the Palestinian case, the root problem is not a legal loophole in nationality frameworks, but the intentional obstruction of Palestinian national rights, particularly the right to self-determination. Palestinian refugees and their descendants remain excluded from both host country citizenship and, in many cases, international refugee protection. The denial of their right of return entrenches their statelessness, with Palestinian identity and rights tied to a homeland from which they are systematically barred. By severing the legal, political, and physical connection between the people and their homeland, Israel entrenches a system of domination that prevents Palestinians, wherever they live, from reclaiming their property, returning to their lands, and participating fully in determining their political future. These are not peripheral matters, but core elements of self-determination as recognised under international law.

This colonial regime translates into systematic restrictions on fundamental rights. Freedom of movement is curtailed by military checkpoints, permit regimes, and barriers across borders. Family unity is fractured by Israeli laws denying family reunification, compounded by restrictive residency policies in other states that host Palestinian refugees. The effects are generational: children born into statelessness inherit the same disenfranchisement, displacement, and dependency on temporary documentation. This, in turn, limits access to quality education, healthcare, and dignified employment, locking many into structural vulnerability that persists across decades.

At the same time, Palestinians face widespread social marginalisation both in host states and within the global diaspora. Legal discrimination, exclusion from political participation, and restricted access to public services are common features of their lived reality. This marginalisation is reinforced by the deliberate fragmentation of the Palestinian people into separate legal and political categories; those in exile, those under occupation, and those holding Israeli citizenship – each subjected to a different system of control. The result is a purposeful dispersal and weakening of Palestinian collective agency, designed to undermine their capacity to act as a unified nation in pursuit of self-determination.

TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

The international system for the protection of Palestinians was set up at a time when the so-called “Palestinian refugee problem” was expected to be temporary, and this system has since proven structurally incapable of coping with what has become a protracted situation. International responsibility for Palestinian protection and durable solutions is fragmented and split between multiple conventions and UN agencies, to the extent that no singular regime is able to offer adequate protection to Palestinian refugees – including a secure legal status – or provide opportunities for durable solutions. Unlike other refugees and stateless people, the protection framework for Palestinians is rooted in and divided between two agencies: the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This split in responsibilities has created a fragmented protection system, further exacerbated by the non-operational status of the UNCCP and the limited scope of UNRWA’s mandate. As a result, a significant protection gap persists. Additionally, States’ inconsistent policies and practices toward Palestinians, including selective application of both the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1954 Statelessness Convention, further deepen this gap. Ultimately, the core issue is not just the inadequacy of institutional frameworks, but the broader structural failure and international inertia that prevent the provision of full protection for Palestinians and the end of settler-colonialism in Palestine.

Depending on where they are, displaced Palestinians may be eligible to receive assistance from the UNRWA or else for protection as a refugee and/or stateless person under the 1951 and 1954 Conventions. UNRWA operates only in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Its mandate in these areas encompasses “Palestine refugees”, defined as those 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 conflicts, as well as their descendants.

Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention specifies that individuals who already receive protection or assistance from a UN agency other than UNHCR are excluded from refugee status under the Convention. At present, the only UN agency to which this applies is UNRWA and so, as outlined in the UNHCR Handbook on the 1951 Convention, Article 1D excludes Palestinians residing in the specific areas of UNRWA operation and who are receiving protection or assistance from UNRWA. All other Palestinian refugees are entitled to refugee status under the Refugee Convention (including in cases where UNRWA protection or assistance has ceased). The 1954 Statelessness Convention was drafted as a sister instrument to the Refugee Convention and includes a similar exclusion clause to Article 1D in its Article 1(2)(i). 

In practice, there is no consensus by states around the interpretation of Article 1D and a significant lack of caselaw or guidance around Article 1(2)(i). States commonly interpret these exclusion clauses expansively, with the effect that Palestinians are unable to access protection as 1951 Convention refugees in their host countries. For example, some countries determine that a person falls under the exclusion clause even when they are applying for 1951 Convention refugee status in areas outside of UNRWA’s five fields of operation. Other countries have determined that the inclusion clause can only come into effect when UNRWA completely ceases to operate and cannot take effect just because individuals have left its geographical area of operations. UNHCR attempted to clarify the application of 1D in relation to Palestinians through a 2013 Note on interpretation, emphasizing that the purpose of the exclusion clause was to avoid overlapping competencies between UNHCR and UNRWA. However, inconsistent interpretations of 1D have persisted and as a result, Palestinians “remain unable to access adequate protection in many countries, or face lengthy legal battles to do so”.

At the regional level, an important attempt to address these gaps was the 1965 Casablanca Protocol on the Treatment of Palestinians in Arab States, adopted by the League of Arab States. The Protocol affirmed that Palestinians should retain their Palestinian identity, while guaranteeing them the right to employment, residency, and freedom of movement in host Arab states on par with citizens, without undermining their status as refugees with the right of return. At the same time, it entrenched restrictions by blocking Palestinians from accessing an Arab host country’s citizenship through naturalisation. Regardless, it is important to note that acquiring citizenship from another country would not resolve Palestinian statelessness or refugeehood, as this is subject to the fulfilment of the rights of self-determination and return. Moreover, the majority of Arab states grant nationality only jus sanguinis through the father, meaning that children born to Arab mothers and Palestinian fathers are excluded from nationality rights. In practice, however, implementation of the Protocol has been inconsistent and politicised; some Arab states incorporated its provisions into domestic law, others applied them selectively, and several ignored or later withdrew from it in practice altogether. As a result, Palestinian refugees across the region have different legal statuses and rights depending on their host states, with many remaining without secure residency. Like the international protection system, the Casablanca Protocol was conceived as a temporary mechanism and ultimately sidestepped the inalienable right to return of Palestinian. 

UNHCR and UNRWA do not provide equivalent levels of protection for the Palestinian displaced population under their respective mandates. UNRWA’s UN mandated function is to provide relief pending the implementation of the UNGA Resolution 194 (III). Unlike UNHCR, UNRWA primarily provides humanitarian assistance with only some protection aspects that do not include conferral of legal status or a mandate to seek durable solutions. The question of a durable solution for the situation of Palestinian refugees and IDPs as a group is part of the mandate of the UNCCP. The UNCCP was established in 1948 to seek a permanent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the enforcement of reparations (return, property restitution, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition) for Palestinians. While it continues to publish an annual updates report, the UNCCP has been unable to fulfil its core mandate and can be considered non-operational. Without a permanent durable solution, Palestinians who are granted refugee status under the Refugee Convention are also severely limited in accessing the durable solutions offered by UNHCR: voluntary repatriation is impossible while Israel refuses the return of Palestinians, resettlement places are already severely limited and become particularly so for Palestinians who lack a possibility of return, and local integration is highly politicised and dependent on specific state policies and support for Palestinians. 

PALESTINIAN SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE QUESTION OF STATEHOOD

Within the nation-state system that dominates contemporary global politics, the denial of Palestinian rights is often addressed in international discourse through the proposition of establishing an independent Palestinian state. However, this framework confines Palestinian aspirations, prioritising colonial geopolitical interests over the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Since 2012, Palestine has held the status of non-member observer state at the UN, allowing participation in UN debates and agencies but does not have full voting rights in the UN General Assembly. Three-quarters of UN member states formally recognise the State of Palestine, but this recognition exists largely in the diplomatic realm. On the ground, sovereignty is systematically undermined by ongoing Israeli military occupation, illegal colonial-settlement expansion, and the deliberate fragmentation of Palestinian territory into isolated, non-contiguous areas. As such, although international recognition of Palestine signals a political stance against Israel’s ongoing occupation, it has not halted the entrenched realities of settler-colonial expansion and territorial seizure. Diplomatic recognition alone does not dismantle the structures that sustain Palestinian statelessness, nor does it secure the exercise of self-determination for all Palestinian people. While the dominant international framework on statelessness reduces “solutions” to questions of statehood and nationality, in the case of Palestine this struggle is far broader. It exceeds the narrow confines of state recognition or establishment, and instead encompasses decolonisation, the right of return, and the full exercise of a people’s inalienable right to self-determination.

For decades, peace processes and “solutions” have centred on statehood as an abstract diplomatic goal, while evading the realities of exile and continued forced displacement. A legitimate path to Palestinian self-determination must be rooted in the collective will of the Palestinian people themselves, reflecting the demands, priorities, and aspirations of Palestinians as a nation, and grounded in the inalienable rights to self-determination and return recognised under international law. Only Palestinians, wherever they reside and regardless of their current legal status, have the right to determine their borders, governance, and sovereignty, free from external imposition or coercion. 

Crucially, the exercise of self-determination cannot be separated from the Palestinian right of return. Refugees displaced during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and subsequent and ongoing waves of forced displacement, must be able to return to their homeland, reclaim their property, and live free from systems of domination and segregation. UNGA Resolution 194 (III), adopted in 1948, affirmed that the displaced Palestinian population wishing to return and live peacefully should be allowed to do so promptly, and that compensation be provided to those who chose not to return or suffered property loss. Israel opposed recognising this right from the outset and pledged to block refugee return. It prevented attempts by attacking Palestinians in refugee camps as part of a broader resettlement policy led by its 'transfer committee'. In 1954, with the ‘Prevention of Infiltration Law’, Israel even made Palestinian return a criminal offence. To this day, Palestinians have been systematically denied the right of return to historic Palestine, while facing successive rounds of forced displacement, leaving more than nine million Palestinians uprooted from their homeland and living as refugees or internally displaced persons. Recognition without repatriation risks reducing Palestinian statehood to an abstraction, divorced from the lived realities of forced displacement, exile, and denial of rights. The Palestinian right of return has been described as “sacred, legal, and possible”. For Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, it is not merely a legal entitlement but a foundational aspect of identity and the collective memory of dispossession. Denying this right not only entrenches statelessness but also severs the intrinsic bond between people, land, and sovereignty. In doing so, it obstructs the realisation of Palestinian statehood and the broader process of decolonisation, making the struggle for self-determination inseparable from the struggle for return. 

The content on this page was developed in collaboration with BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. 

[Last updated September 2025]