BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

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Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (2006-2007)
Palestinian houses in the depopulated village of Lifta, Jerusalem. © Anne Paq.
seek to ensure that such
agreements explicitly include
provisions on the housing
and property rights of
those choosing to repatriate
and that judicial or other
mechanisms designed to
ensure the implementation of
such rights are established. 46
The Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement reaffirm a similar
principle, whereby
competent authorities have
the duty and responsibility to
assist returned and/or resettled
internally displaced persons to
recover, to the extent possible,
their property and possessions
which they left behind or
were dispossessed of upon
their displacement. 47
The United Nations has also affirmed
the right of Palestinian refugees and
IDPs to restitution in numerous
resolutions. These include General
Assembly Resolutions 194 (11
December 1948), 3236 (22 November
1974), 36/146 (16 December 1981)
and 58/229 (23 December 2003).
General Assembly Resolution 194(III) affirms the right of all persons displaced in 1948 to housing and property
restitution. “The underlying principle of paragraph 11, sub-paragraph 1 […] is that the Palestine refugees
shall be permitted […] to return to their homes and be reinstated in the possession of the property which they
previously held” 48 [emphasis added]. The right to restitution for refugee property “wrongfully seized, sequestered,
requisitioned, confiscated, or detained by the Israeli government” 49 reflected general principles of international
law in 1948.
The right to housing and property restitution in Resolution 194(III) should also be read in light of the UN
Mediator’s earlier communiqués to the UN Security Council. In June 1948, for example, the Mediator wrote
that the residents of Palestine should be permitted both to return to their homes without restriction, and to
regain possession of their property. 50 “There have been numerous reports from reliable sources of large-scale
pillaging and plundering, and of instances of destruction of villages without apparent necessity. It would be an
offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right
to return to their homes […]” 51 [emphasis added].