Present Absentee - Present Absentees

Present Absentees

In 1950, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) estimated that 46,000 of the 156,000 Palestinians. who remained inside the borders demarcated as Israel by the 1949 armistice agreement were internally displaced refugees.

As it was for most other Palestinian refugees, the homes and properties of internally displaced Palestinians were placed under the control of a government body, the Custodian of Absentees' Property via legislation that includes the 1948 Emergency Regulation Concerning Absentee Property (a temporary measure) and the 1950 Absentee Property Law.

Unlike other Palestinian refugees, the internally displaced Palestinians and others who remained inside what became Israel were made citizens by the Citizenship Law of July 1952. That same year Israel requested that UNRWA transfer responsibility for registering and caring for internally displaced persons to Israel and basic humanitarian assistance was provided to the internally displaced for a time.

Military administrative rule (1948–1966) restricted the movement of Arab citizens of Israel, and it combined with the Absentees' Property Laws to prevent internally displaced citizens from physically returning to their properties to reclaim their homes. According to the Absentees' Property Laws, "absentees" are non-Jewish residents of Palestine who had left his usual place of residence for any place inside or outside the country after the adoption of the partition of Palestine resolution by the UN. Under these laws, "absentee" property owners were required to prove their "presence" in order to gain recognition of their ownership rights by the Israeli government. However, all ownership rights of "absentees" belong to the government-appointed Custodian of Absentee Property, and any person including the "absentee" owner himself found occupying, building, or being "present" on such properties would be violating the law and risk expulsion and demolition.

Refugee rights groups report that Palestinians inside Israel tried to return to their villages of origin, often by sending letters to Israeli ministries. Letters were generally written by village mukhtars and dignitaries, and would emphasize the good relationship between the residents of the village with their Jewish neighbors, and the desire to live in peace under Israeli rule. The Israeli response to these letters was negative.

Some villagers like those of Ghassibiya, Bir'im and Iqrit whose petitions to the Israeli High Court to have their property rights recognized were accepted in the 1950s, but they were physically prevented from reclaiming their properties by military administrative authorities who refused to abide by the court rulings and declared the villages closed military zones.

Because most internally displaced Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel were counted as absent, even though present inside the Israeli state, they are also commonly referred to as present absentees.