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77 years on UN Resolution 194, 77 Years of States’ Failure and Complicity
77 years on UN Resolution 194, 77 Years of States’ Failure and Complicity

On the 77th anniversary of UNGA Resolution 194 (III), the right of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to return remains unfulfilled. As the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli colonial expansion in the West Bank are ongoing, Palestinians find themselves forcibly displaced over and over again. In parallel, the existing international protection frameworks are being deliberately obstructed and dismantled. The Palestinian people continue to face an ongoing Nakba that is the direct result of 77 years of blatant failure of states and the UN to address the root causes: Israeli forced displacement and transfer, colonization, and apartheid. Further, many powerful western states are profoundly complicit in these crimes.

 

As of 2024, Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons constitute 9.88 million – 66 percent of the Palestinian people. Palestinian refugees in both the West Bank and Gaza continue to experience forced displacement and transfer at the hands of the Israeli regime. Not only that, but just as the Israeli regime has denied Palestinian return to their homes of origin for the last 77 years, it continues to forcibly displace Palestinians into smaller and smaller enclaves and deny them return - even to the refugee camps where they have been forced to live. 

 

As the genocide continues in the Gaza Strip under a false ceasefire, Palestinians have been displaced at least once per month since the genocide started. Israeli war chief Eyal Zamir declared that "The 'yellow line' is a new border line” and Israeli forces will not withdraw from it.  Zamir is reiterating a 77-year long policy of the Israeli regime: the denial of return. Specifically, Palestinians will not be allowed to return to their residences, and will remain confined and contained to the other side of the yellow line. Further, the Israeli regime has demanded the elimination of UNRWA as a condition for its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Banned by the Israeli regime in January 2025, the UN agency constitutes the last and only operational mandated organization dedicated to Palestinian refugees.

 

In the West Bank, Palestinian refugees displaced since January 2025 from the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams have also been denied return to their camp residences. The Israeli regime has now conditioned their return on the elimination of their refugee status, the redesign of the refugee camps into “neighborhoods” and the expulsion of UNRWA.

 

Per its mandate, UNRWA must continue to operate until the implementation of UN Resolution 194. The protection of UNRWA, including securing its operations and budget are an obligation on all states - not a favor. The elimination of UNRWA is intrinsically tied to the Israeli goal to erase the Palestinian refugee issue, refugee camps and their right of return.

 

Since states have persistently ignored their obligations and granted the Israeli regime both impunity and legitimacy, it is not surprising that the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and return are repeatedly violated. As the states haggle over Trump’s plan, and in particular the so-called “International Stabilization Forces” and the “Board of Peace,” they continue to enable and encourage Israeli crimes through their ongoing political, financial and military support. As they stand idly by debating advisory opinions and provisional measures, entrenching their complicity, they have essentially green-lighted the Israeli regime’s erasure of the Palestinian refugee issue and its other crimes. 

 

BADIL and the Global Palestinian Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Network (GPRN) call on states to:

  1. End their complicity in the Israeli crimes of forced displacement and transfer, colonization, apartheid and genocide and impose political, economic and military sanctions against the Israeli regime.
  2. Freeze Israeli membership in the UN and other international forums, and prevent all Israeli companies, organizations, and institutions from operating in their countries in response to the banning of UNRWA.
  3. Develop a reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip and the destroyed refugee camps in the north of the West Bank that is couched in reparations.
  4. End Israeli impunity and enforce international law by holding the Israeli regime legal and financially accountable for its crimes, including the denial of return.

 

BADIL and the GPRN call on the international solidarity movement to escalate its direct actions to disrupt the status quo.