On the 24th of February 2020, Yasser Arafat Foundation launched an electronic archive of private ownership by Palestine refugees documented by the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine.
The archive provides access to data on the ownership of more than five and a half million dunums of land privately owned by Palestine refugees from what became known as Israel, following Al-Nakba that befell the Palestinian people in 1948.
Copies of the documents collected and prepared by the Conciliation Commission can be accessed and obtained at the Resource Center at Yasser Arafat Museum. Those who are unable to visit the Resource Center may contact Yasser Arafat Foundation to request copies of documents by providing proof of evidence either by the name or land parcel of the applicant, including:
1. Full name
2. Copy of official identification of the applicant (I.D. / passport)
3. Any information available to the applicant on the identity of the landowner, area, village, and parcel number.
Messages/requests may be submitted to the coordinator of the project on private land ownership by Palestine refugees at: Lands@yaf.ps
Lands@yaf.ps
Dr. Nasser Alkidwa
Al-Muntada Hall
Yasser Arafat Museum
24 February 2020
Translated from Arabic
Private Ownership by Palestine Refugees
In 1948, Al-Nakba befell the Palestinian people: the loss of Palestine as a country and a homeland, the destruction of their community, more than half the population uprooted and transformed to refugees, their cities evacuated and their villages demolished. Prior to and during Al-Nakba of 1948, Israeli terrorist groups and military formations uprooted 750,000 Palestinians from their lands, homes and properties, to become refugees in what remained of the Palestinian land and the surrounding Arab states.
By the end of Al-Nakba, the Israeli side had managed to occupy half of the lands allocated by the Partition Plan 181(II) to the Arab state, in addition to its control over the territories allocated by the resolution for the Jewish state. Israel subsequently prohibited those refugees from returning to their lands, homes and properties, and desisted in paying compensation to them, despite repeated United Nations General Assembly resolutions in this regard.
In resolution 194 (III), adopted in December 1948, the General Assembly established the “United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine” consisting of three states to carry out the tasks of the United Nations Mediator [Count Folke Bernadotte] in Palestine, following his assassination and the termination of his office. The General Assembly assigned the Conciliation Commission to carry out several tasks, including “to assist the Government and authorities concerned to achieve a final settlement of all questions outstanding between them . . . to present . . . detailed proposals for a permanent international regime for the Jerusalem area” and “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees.” In paragraph 11 of the resolution, the General Assembly reaffirmed “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property ...” The General Assembly requested the Committee to submit periodic reports on its work. During that same session, the General Assembly adopted the formation of the Conciliation Commission predicated on the proposal of the five-member states and France, Turkey and the United States were selected as its member states.
In the ensuing years, the Committee failed to implement its mandate to negotiate a peaceful solution, particularly for the return of Palestine refugees, between Israel and the Arab parties (nonetheless, Armistice Agreements were concluded).
In its resolution 394 (V) of December 1950, the General Assembly directed the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine to establish a refugee “office, which … shall make such arrangements as it considers necessary for the assessment and payment of compensation in pursuance of paragraph 11 of . . . Resolution 194 (III).” Since then, the Commission focused its work on the issue of refugees, establishing the Office of Identification and Evaluation (Technical Office) in 1952, which continued to function through 1966. The Commission reached some estimates of the value of the properties of the refugees, which were rejected by the Arab countries at the time.
Through its Refugee and Technical Offices, the Commission conducted a comprehensive survey of the land ownership of Palestine refugees, using the British land and tax registries and statistical data. As a result of this diligent work, 540,000 parcels of land belonging to Palestine refugees were identified. The Commission developed a special form for each parcel, titled R/P1, that included data about the owner/s, type of land, area, map and registry (if found), taxes imposed, and even Ottoman registry documents – although most are illegible. The Office then identified 210,000 owners, each of whom was assigned a “card index” for his/her property in the district, in addition to 6,000 maps of land parcels, areas and villages. The Commission also developed registries for land parcels owned by bodies such as endowments, churches, the mandate authority, and land parcels owned by non-Palestinian individuals. With the end of the Commission’s work in 1966, on the property of Palestine refugees, this substantial record remained with the United Nations, dealt with as “secret” and included microfilm images of the British and Ottoman registries, as well as the above-mentioned and a number of other documents. Nevertheless, in 1973, the Commission decided to grant permission to interested parties to obtain copies from the record. Consequently, a microfilm version of the Commission’s documents were acquired by Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the League of Arab States.
The Palestine Liberation Organization later obtained a copy – but it was stored in one of its offices in Damascus where it could not be found. In the 1990s, the Institute for Palestine Studies gave particular attention to this “treasure trove” of information and promoted the importance of storing the record, developing it technically and then using it. The Palestine Observer Mission to the United Nations took hold of this idea, and after consultations with some member states, added an amendment to United Nations General Assembly resolution 51/129 adopted on the 13th of December 1996, that requested the United Nations Secretary-General “to take all appropriate steps, in consultation with the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, for the protection of Arab property, assets and property rights in Israel and to preserve and modernize the existing records.” Subsequently, the Palestine Committee (the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People) assumed direct responsibility and arranged a contract with a private company (TransCAD) to digitize and update the documents of the Conciliation Commission and create an electronic archive of land registry, appropriating $1 million from its budget to do so. The company implemented this in two phases and delivered the “product” to the Palestine Committee, which in turn dispatched a copy of the updated record to the Palestine Mission to the United Nations.
Several years ago, and upon presidential orders, the Institute for Palestine Studies received a copy of the record from the Palestine Mission to the United Nations. The Institute has done significant work in this field, but it is still far from complete, and efforts to coordinate the work of the two institutions in this field continue.
In 2019, and after nearly 20 years of not benefiting from the aforementioned record to restore refugees’ rights, the Yasser Arafat Foundation determined that the copy brought by the Chairman of the Board of Directors from the Palestine Observer Mission to the United Nations should be reviewed and validated. The Board of Directors of the Foundation then directed that, in light of recent technical advances, an electronic record of the data should be developed so that a reliable copy of the digitized documents, as well as the electronic archive produced by (TransCAD), are available forthwith, and the development of a new database that would be accessible on the internet and can be easily searched and explored in Arabic and English, with links to available documents of each land parcel and landowner/s, in addition to the necessary work regarding the Commission’s and recent available maps. This was all completed with a local company that has been contracted to facilitate the work.
This important and updated record is now available to the Palestinian leadership, the Palestinian National Movement and the Palestinian people, and must be used in the struggle for the restoration of the rights of Palestine refugees, including lands illegally seized by Israel. The Foundation will work to provide a space for all those interested in reviewing the data and possibly obtain copies of documents related to a case or specified land in question.
Electronic Archive of Data on Private Ownership by Palestine Refugees
These illustrations demonstrate the basic steps to conduct a search in the electronic archive in the Museum’s Resource Center:
