H.Res. 1289

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1289 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1289

Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestinian refugees' rights.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 14, 2026

Ms. Tlaib (for herself, Mr. Carson, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Mr. Green 
of Texas, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania, Ms. 
McCollum, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, Ms. Pressley, Mrs. Ramirez, Ms. 
Simon, and Mrs. Watson Coleman) submitted the following resolution; 
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

RESOLUTION

Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestinian refugees' rights.

Whereas May 15, 2026, is the 78th commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, 
meaning ``catastrophe'' in English, a term which refers to Israel's 
uprooting, dispossession, and exile of the Palestinian people from their 
homeland;
Whereas the United Nations General Assembly recommended on November 29, 1947, to 
partition Palestine into two States against the wishes of Palestine's 
majority indigenous inhabitants;
Whereas, almost immediately following the passage of the United Nations 
partition plan, Zionist militias began a deliberate and systematic 
effort to expel Palestinians from their lands, a campaign which included 
massacres and other atrocities against civilian populations;
Whereas, before the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, 
between 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees had already been 
forcibly expelled or fled from their homes, often following attacks by 
Zionist militias on major Palestinian cities and villages;
Whereas, by the time of the signing of armistice agreements between Israel and 
neighboring Arab countries in 1949, the new State of Israel had 
established control over 78 percent of Palestine and, in the process, 
conquered an additional 23 percent of Palestine beyond those areas 
allocated to the Jewish State under the partition plan;
Whereas, by the time of the 1949 armistice, Zionist militias and the new Israeli 
army had expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians, roughly 75 percent of 
the entire indigenous Palestinian population, from their homes in areas 
that became the State of Israel, becoming refugees living in exile;
Whereas, by 1949, Israel had depopulated more than 400 Palestinian villages and 
cities, often demolishing all homes and other structures and planting 
forests over them;
Whereas the United States knew of the scale and magnitude of the Palestinian 
refugee crisis as it unfolded, as is documented in an October 1948 
telegram to the President and Secretary of State from the Embassy of the 
United States to Israel, warning that the ``Arab Refugee tragedy is 
rapidly reaching catastrophic proportions and should be treated as a 
disaster'';
Whereas the United States voted in favor of United Nations General Assembly 
Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, which states that Palestinian 
``refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their 
neighbors 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 which, under 
principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the 
governments or authorities responsible'';
Whereas Palestinian refugees' right of return is not only stipulated in a 
General Assembly resolution, but is also anchored in international law, 
including in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 
which states: ``Everyone has the right to leave any country, including 
his own, and to return to his country'', and reaffirmed by the 
International Court of Justice;
Whereas international law also recognizes that descendants of those displaced 
remain refugees, and that according to the United Nations, ``Palestine 
refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee situations such 
as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple 
generations of refugees, considered by the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees as refugees and supported as such. Protracted 
refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political 
solutions to their underlying political crises'';
Whereas, on December 8, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly adopted 
Resolution 302 establishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency 
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which the United States has 
financially supported on an almost continuous basis since its 
establishment until United States funding was suspended in January 2024;
Whereas, of the more than 7,000,000 Palestinian Nakba refugees, the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East 
provides much-needed social services to 5,900,000 Palestine refugees 
today;
Whereas, in addition to this 1947 through 1949 Nakba refugee population, there 
are at least another 1,330,000 Palestinian refugees comprised of those 
displaced during the 1967 Naksa and their descendants, as well as at 
least 812,000 Palestinian internally displaced persons from both the 
Nakba and Naksa, who are likewise prevented from returning to their 
homes;
Whereas the Nakba refers not only to a historical event but to an ongoing 
process of Israel's expropriation of Palestinian land and its 
dispossession of the Palestinian people that continues to this day, 
including the systematic destruction of Palestinian homes, 
neighborhoods, cities, and refugee camps, the construction and expansion 
of illegal settlements, and the confinement of Palestinians to ever-
shrinking areas of land;
Whereas the apartheid Government of Israel is committing a genocide against the 
Palestinian people which, between October 2023 and May 9, 2026, has--

(1) killed at least 72,737 people in Gaza, including more than 21,289 
children, with multiple peer-reviewed studies concluding the official death 
toll is likely a severe undercount, with thousands more Palestinians buried 
under the rubble and countless more dead as a result of siege, forced 
starvation, and the systematic destruction of civil, water, and health 
infrastructure;

(2) wounded more than 172,539 in Gaza;

(3) displaced over 1,900,000 in Gaza, many themselves refugees from the 
Nakba;

(4) engineered a state of famine across Gaza; and

(5) killed at least 1,160 people in the occupied West Bank, including 
242 children;

Whereas the establishment and expansion of hundreds of illegal settlements and 
outposts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in which approximately 
743,600 Israelis reside as of 2025 is another form of ethnic cleaning 
used to perpetuate the Nakba;
Whereas the United States is complicit in Israel's ongoing Nakba against the 
Palestinian people by providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic 
support even as its leaders openly announce and carry out plans to 
ethnically cleanse and depopulate Palestinian communities today; and
Whereas a just and lasting resolution requires respect for and the 
implementation of Palestine refugee rights as enshrined in United 
Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
it is the policy of the United States to--
(1) commemorate the Nakba through official recognition and 
remembrance;
(2) denounce the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people;
(3) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
associate the United States Government with denial of the 
Nakba;
(4) encourage education and public understanding of the 
facts of the Nakba and the relevance of the Nakba to other 
modern-day refugee crises;
(5) support the resumed provision of social services to 
Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and 
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East;
(6) support the implementation of Palestinian refugees' 
rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly 
Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
(7) recognize that Palestinians are a unique people who are 
every bit as human as everyone else;
(8) reject bigoted efforts to question, dismiss, or 
otherwise deny the existence of Palestinians and their 
humanity; and
(9) ensure the United States ends its complicity in 
Israel's ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people by--
(A) prohibiting United States weapons from being 
used to destroy Palestinian homes and forcibly remove 
Palestinians from their land; and
(B) ending United States diplomatic support for 
such actions.
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