Affirmation of the Palestinian Right of Return

 We the Palestinian signatories to this Declaration,

Cognizant of the facts that,

Our people have been expelled from their homes in 531 towns and villages in Palestine in 1948 by the Zionist and Israeli military forces and that their land, comprising 92% of Israel, has been confiscated;

Our people have endured 51 years of exile, ravages of war, oppression, denial of national identity and racism and have been the victim of the largest meticulously-planned ethnic cleansing operation, unprecedented in modern history with the aim of replacing them with Jewish immigrants from all over the world; 

Two thirds of our people, over five million refugees and uprooted, represent the largest and oldest group of  refugees in the world; 

In spite of overwhelming international consensus supported by hundreds of UN resolutions, our people are still unable to fulfil their natural right to return home; 

Hereby affirm the following: 

The right of the Palestinian refugees and the uprooted to return to their homes is a fundamental right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the European, the American and the African Conventions on Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; 

The right of the Palestinian refugees and the uprooted to return to their homes is an inalienable right and has been affirmed by the UN resolution No 194 over 130 times since 1948; 

The Right of Return is derived from the sanctity of private ownership which cannot be extinguished by new sovereignty or occupation and does not have a statute of limitation; it is according to this principle that the European Jews claimed successfully the restitution of their lost property in WWII, without the benefit of a single UN resolution; 

The Right of Return is essentially an individual right which cannot be delegated, diminished, reduced or forfeited by any representation on behalf of the Palestinians in any agreement or treaty; 

The Right of Return is not substituted or affected in any way by the establishment of  a Palestinian state in any form  

Accordingly, we hereby declare that,  

We absolutely do not accept or recognize any outcome of negotiations which may lead to an agreement that forfeits any part of the right of return of the refugees and the uprooted to their homes from where they were expelled in 1948, or their due compensation, and we do not accept compensation as a substitute for return, 

We demand due reparation for the psychological suffering, the material losses and damages and War Crimes which the refugees endured for 51 years in accordance with international law and legal precedents, 

As we sign here, members of the Palestinian people from all walks of life, including the refugees in the Palestinian territory where 29% live and the rest scattered in the rest of the world, 

Appeal to fair-minded people, human rights advocates, the international community, the United Nations, and world governments, particularly those who were involved in the Palestinian tragedy, to recognize and support by all available means the right of the Palestinians to return home, in addition to their compensation, realising that just and comprehensive peace can only prevail in the Middle East upon the implementation of the Right of Return for the largest and oldest refugee problem in the world.