Present absentee
Present absentees are Arab internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled or were expelled from their homes in Mandatory Palestine during the 1947–1949 Palestine war but remained within the area that became the state of Israel.
In 1950, 46,000 out of the 156,000 Israeli Arabs in Israel were considered present absentees. According to 2015 estimates from Palestinian NGO BADIL, there are 384,200 IDPs in Israel and 334,600 IDPs in the Palestinian territories.[1]
IDPs are not permitted to live in the homes they formerly lived in, even if they were in the same area as their home, the property still exists, and they can show that they own it. They are regarded as absent by the Israeli government because they were absent from their homes on a particular day, even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a few days, and even if they left involuntarily.[2] The community carries out an annual March of Return to their former villages.
IDPs in Palestine
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimated in July 2015 that there are at least 263,500 IDPs in Occupied Palestine.[10]
Research on the internal refugees
A few books focus on Arab internal refugees in Israel and internally displaced Palestinians across the Green Line.
In 1991, Israeli writer and peace activist David Grossman conducted several interviews with Palestinian citizens of Israel. These were published in a book called in Hebrew: נוכחים נפקדים, romanized: Nokhekhim Nifkadim, lit. 'Absent Presentees'. The English version was titled Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel.
As Nur Masalha puts it in his introduction: "Acquiring the paradoxical title of present absentees, the internally displaced had their property and homes taken by the state, making them refugees and exiles within their own homeland."[11] The book uses oral history and interviews with internal refugees to examine Palestinian identity and memory, indigenous rights, international protection, the right of return, and a just solution in Palestine/Israel.