PALESTINE

KEY ISSUES ON PALESTINE AND STATELESSNESS

• Following the establishment of Israel and the 1948 Nakba, 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’ recognized right of return to Palestine.

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 X million people, nearly half of whom live outside historical Palestine. This “statelessness” stems from mass displacement during the 1948 Nakba and subsequent wars, and ongoing military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, leaving many Palestinians without recognized citizenship and subjected to complex legal and political statuses. The question of Palestinian statelessness is deeply complicated, not only legally and politically but also in terms of lived experience and identity. For Palestinians, identity transcends legal labels, reflecting a profound and persistent reality shaped by displacement, denationalization, and contested rights.

From a legal perspective, the question of Palestinian “statelessness” cannot be reduced to the mere absence of nationality. Rather, it constitutes the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and statehood. Nationality is a legal marker of belonging to a sovereign political community; when that community’s sovereignty is deliberately obstructed, statelessness becomes a structural instrument of domination. In the Palestinian case, the root problem is not an administrative gap in nationality law, but the ongoing prevention of Palestinian sovereignty and denial of Palestinian national rights. This places the question squarely within the realm of peremptory norms, where the prohibition of colonisation and the right to self-determination are binding obligations on all states. As such, it demands concrete international action to restore the full collective rights of the Palestinian people.

The “statelessness” of Palestinians is neither accidental nor the outcome of bureaucratic neglect; it is the product of a deliberate political strategy aimed at obstructing the Palestinian people’s exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination. By severing the legal, political, and physical connection between the people and their homeland, Israel entrenches a system 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 engineered condition translates into systematic restrictions on fundamental rights. Freedom of movement is curtailed by military checkpoints, permit regimes, and legal 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 legal void, perpetuating cycles of 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 people in pursuit of self-determination.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

*Videos below are part of the ongoing project "We Were and Still Are... Here" by Tarek Bakri, documenting personal stories of displaced Palestinians. Visit https://tarekbakri.com/ to learn more about the project and see more videos.

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. Under international refugee law, the concepts of protection and achieving a durable solution are inherently linked. However, 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. States’ inconsistent policy and practice towards Palestinians as a group, including selective application of both the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1954 Statelessness Convention to Palestinians, compound the existing protection gap in an already fractured framework.

Palestinians who are seeking protection or assistance both in the Palestinian territories and abroad may be eligible for protection as a refugee or stateless person, or else receive assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA operates only in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Its mandate 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, meaning the primary criteria for eligibility of UNRWA Palestine refugee status is the need for assistance.

Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention explicitly excludes refugees who receive protection or assistance from a UN agency other than UNHCR. The only currently existing UN agency that could apply here is UNRWA. Therefore, as outlined in the UNHCR Handbook on the 1951 Convention, Article 1D only excludes Palestinians residing in the specific areas of UNRWA operation and who are receiving protection or assistance from UNRWA, and all other Palestinian refugees are entitled to refugee status under the Refugee Convention. Article 1D of the Refugee Convention also contains an ‘inclusion’ clause, stating that if UNRWA protection or assistance has ceased, the former UNRWA recipient is automatically entitled to the benefits of the Refugee Convention. 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). The 1954 Convention lacks an inclusion clause, and so Palestinians who are eligible for assistance from UNRWA when its assistance to them ceases fall back into the protection of the Refugee Convention rather than the Statelessness Convention.

In practice, there is no consensus or consistency among states in the interpretation and application of Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention and a significant lack of caselaw or UN guidance around Article 1(2)(i) of the 1954 Statelessness Convention. For example, the Egyptian government takes the position that Palestinians in the country fall under the mandate of UNRWA and so are denied protection or assistance from UNHCR, despite the fact that Egypt is not in UNRWA’s field of operation. Other countries have considered that the inclusion clause of 1D can only come into effect when UNRWA completely ceases to operate and cannot take effect just because an individual has left its geographical area of operations. UNHCR attempted to clarify interpretations of 1D in relation to Palestinians through a Note issued in 2013, emphasising that the purpose of the exclusion clause was to avoid overlapping competencies between UNHCR and UNRWA, and the inclusion clause was to ensure continuity of protection and assistance for Palestinian refugees. The 2013 Note clarified that the exclusion clause applied to Palestinians even where they had not actually availed themselves of UNRWA protection, provided that they were eligible to do so. The cessation of UNRWA activities in the inclusion clause could be demonstrated by the termination of UNRWA, the discontinuation of its activities, or any objective reason outside the control of the person concerned rendering them unable to (re-)avail themselves of the protection or assistance of UNRWA. Objective reasons include serious protection-related reasons such as threats to life, and physical security or freedom, as well as practical, legal and safety barriers to return.

UNHCR and UNRWA do not provide equivalent levels of protection for the refugees under their respective mandates. UNRWA’s UN mandated function is to provide relief pending the implementing of Palestinian return and eligibility. 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 as a group is part of the mandate of the Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP). The UNCCP was established in 1948 to seek a permanent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 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 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. The consequence is that neither UNRWA nor UNHCR are capable of providing protection to the Palestinian refugees under their mandates. 

Despite its shortcomings, UNRWA is an essential lifeline for Palestinians, including as the primary provider of education, healthcare, and food for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. 

PALESTINIAN 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. As of September 2025, 147 UN member states formally recognise the State of Palestine; however, this recognition exists largely in the diplomatic realm. On the ground, sovereignty is systematically undermined by ongoing Israeli military occupation, illegal 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 establishment of a Palestinian state is presented as a pathway to justice, the reality is that – for decades – the majority of political processes and “peace plans” have repeatedly imposed externally crafted “solutions” that prioritise geopolitical interests over the inalienable rights of Palestinians. A legitimate Palestinian state must be the product of Palestinian collective will, reflecting the demands, priorities, and aspirations of Palestinians as a nation, and grounded in the inalienable right to self-determination recognised under international law. Only the Palestinian people, wherever they reside and regardless of their current legal status, have the right to determine its borders, governance structures and sovereign authority – free from external imposition or coercion. 

Most critically, such a state must enshrine and implement the Palestinian right of return, ensuring that refugees displaced during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and in subsequent and ongoing waves of forced displacement, can return to their homeland, reclaim their property, and live free from systems of domination and segregation. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III), adopted in 1948, affirmed that Palestinian refugees 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 recognizing 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 while facing successive rounds of forced displacement, leaving more than X 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. Without the right of return, “statehood” risks becoming a mechanism for legitimising permanent dispossession, rather than a vehicle for freedom and liberation.

Before the Nakba, Palestinians held Ottoman and then Palestine Mandate citizenship as established by the British through the Palestine Citizenship Order. Typically, after state succession, residents would gain the new state’s citizenship, but Israel’s 1952 Nationality Law repealed the previous order and created separate criteria for Jews and Arabs, meaning only part of the population received citizenship. Displaced Palestinians abroad were excluded and could only become Israeli citizens if they returned by 1952 — a rare occurrence, since Palestinian return efforts were violently prevented by Israel and the law was purposely drafted to exclude those displaced in 1948. By 1952, nearly a million Palestinians were effectively stripped of citizenship en masse. 

As of September 2025, X million Palestinian refugees and their descendants remain stateless. The cycle of inter-generational Palestinian statelessness is driven by denial of the right of return: often excluded from host country citizenship and international refugee protection, Palestinian refugees cannot enter or reside in Palestine, blocking self-determination and realization of their human rights. This denial keeps Palestinians trapped in ongoing statelessness, with their identity and rights tied to a place they are barred from accessing.