1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight
In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, at first by Zionist paramilitaries,[a] and after the establishment of Israel, by its military.[b] The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba.[1] Dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted by Israeli military forces and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme and properties were looted to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning.[2][3] Other sites were subject to Hebraization of Palestinian place names.[4]
The precise number of Palestinian refugees, many of whom settled in Palestinian refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute.[5] Around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel (half of the Arab total population of Mandatory Palestine) left or were expelled from their homes.[6][7] About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled during the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, before the termination of the British Mandate on May 14 1948. The desire to prevent the collapse of the Palestinians and to avoid more refugees were some of the reasons for the entry of the Arab League into the country, which began the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.[8][9]
The causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus are also a subject of fundamental disagreement among historians. Factors involved in the exodus include Jewish military advances, destruction of Arab villages, psychological warfare, fears of another massacre by Zionist militias after the Deir Yassin massacre,[10]: 239–240 which caused many to leave out of panic, direct expulsion orders by Israeli authorities, the demoralizing impact of wealthier classes fleeing,[11] the typhoid epidemic in some areas caused by Israeli well-poisoning,[12] collapse in Palestinian leadership and Arab evacuation orders,[13][14] and a disinclination to live under Jewish control.[15][16]
Later, a series of land and property laws passed by the first Israeli government prevented Arabs who had left from returning to their homes or claiming their property. They and many of their descendants remain refugees.[17][18] The expulsion of the Palestinians has since been described by some historians as ethnic cleansing,[19][3][20] while others dispute this charge.[21][22][23] Nevertheless, the existence of the so-called Law of Return allowing for immigration and naturalization of any Jewish person and their family to Israel, while a Palestinian right of return has been denied, has been cited as an evidence for the charge that Israel practices apartheid.[24][25]
The status of the refugees, and in particular whether Israel will allow them the right to return to their homes, or compensate them, are key issues in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The events of the Palestinian expulsion are commemorated 15 May, a date known as Nakba Day.
Contemporary mediation and the Lausanne Conference
UN mediation
The United Nations, using the offices of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization and the Mixed Armistice Commissions, was involved in the conflict from the very beginning. In the autumn of 1948 the refugee problem was a fact and possible solutions were discussed. Count Folke Bernadotte said on 16 September:
Israeli resettlement program
Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained control over a substantial number of refugee camps in the territories it captured from Egypt and Jordan. The Israeli government attempted to resettle them permanently by initiating a subsidized "build-your-own home" program. Israel provided land for refugees who chose to participate; the Palestinians bought building materials on credit and built their own houses, usually with friends. Israel provided the new neighborhoods with necessary services, such as schools and sewers.[97]
The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolutions 31/15 and 34/52, which condemned the program as a violation of the refugees' "inalienable right of return", and called upon Israel to stop the program.[98] Thousands of refugees were resettled into various neighborhoods, but the program was suspended due to pressure from the PLO.[97]
A Palestinian watches over a school in a refugee camp, 1948.
Makeshift school for Palestinian refugees
Palestinian woman, a child and a jug
Refugees in the open, 1948
Old and young in the entrance of a tent, 1948
