Hamas will fight any change to definition of Palestinian refugee

The Department of Refugees’ Affairs in the Islamic Resistance Movement has said that it will fight to block any manipulation to change the definition of a “Palestinian refugee” in international agreements. The department warned that Israel would pay a price for such manipulation, as would anyone who stands with Israel in this matter.

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Hamas called on the UN and UNRWA not to deal with what it calls “irresponsible demands”, stressing that “Hamas and all the Palestinian resistance movements will not stand idle and watch the most important and inalienable fundamentals of the Palestinian people get exploited by the Israelis and their allies.”

Israel is trying to go through the UN to change the legal nature of Palestinian refugees and deny “refugee” status from the Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland in 1948. Hamas pointed out that this issue has already been introduced by Israel through a US Congressman who wants to end the automatic transmission of “refugee” status to the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees from 1948.

“The inheritance of labels from of one generation to another is normal,” said the Hamas statement, “and Israel itself claims that it inherited the right to ‘return’ to Palestine from its ‘ancestors’ two thousand years ago.” Is it logical, asked Hamas, for the world to accepts Israel’s use of the “return” right for Jews whose ancestors may or may not have left Palestine two thousand years ago but not to accept the return of Palestinian refugees whose fathers were expelled sixty-five years ago? “It is inconceivable that Israel, the country which expelled the [Palestinian] refugees in 1948, should be the one which defines who a Palestinian refugee is.”

The statement reviewed the UN’s role and the establishment of its Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide stability for Palestinian refugees until a solution could be found for the crisis. “Any manipulation of refugee status, future and rights means disruption for the region and the world,” insists Hamas, “and we will not sit and do nothing while this plot develops.”