Who is a Palestine refugee?
The operational definition of a Palestine refugee is any person 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 conflict.” Palestine refugees are persons who fulfil the above definition and descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition. Read UNRWA’s full eligibility rules (PDF) In May 1951, UNRWA inherited a list of 950,000 persons from its predecessor agencies. In the first four months of operations, UNRWA reduced this list to 860,000 persons, based on painstaking census efforts and identification of fraudulent claims. The 1948 registered refugees and their descendants now number over 4.7 million, and mainly reside in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon or Syria.
