•HRES 409 IH 
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 prop-
erty of those choosing not to return and for loss of or 
damage to property which, under principles of inter-
national law or in equity, should be made good by the 
governments or authorities responsible’’; 
Whereas Palestinian refugees’ right of return is not only stip-
ulated in a General Assembly resolution, but is also an-
chored in international law and in Article 13 of the Uni-
versal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: ‘‘Ev-
eryone has the right to leave any country, including his 
own, and to return to his country’’; 
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 estab-
lishment; 
Whereas, of the more than 7,000,000 Palestinian refugees, 
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Pal-
estine Refugees in the Near East provides much-needed 
social services to 5,900,000 Palestine refugees today; 
Whereas international law also recognizes that descendants of 
refugees retain their rights as refugees, and that accord-
ing to the United Nations, ‘‘Palestine refugees are not 
distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as 
those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are mul-
tiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as 
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•HRES 409 IH 
refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situa-
tions are the result of the failure to find political solu-
tions to their underlying political crises.’’; 
Whereas the Nakba refers not only to a historical event but 
to an ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Pales-
tinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian people 
that continues to this day, including the systematic de-
struction of Palestinian homes, the construction and ex-
pansion 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, as of April 
9, 2025, has— 
(1) killed at least 50,810 people, including more 
than 15,600 children, with over 14,000 more still missing 
and presumed dead under the rubble; 
(2) wounded more than 115,688; 
(3) displaced over 1,900,000; and 
(4) engineered a state of famine across Gaza; 
Whereas the establishment and expansion of hundreds of ille-
gal settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian 
West Bank in which approximately 737,000 Israelis re-
side as of 2023 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 en-
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•HRES 409 IH 
shrined 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 Rep-
resentatives 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 Pales-
tinian people; 
(3) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
associate the United States Government with denial 
of the Nakba; 
(4) encourage education and public under-
standing of the facts of the Nakba, including the 
United States role in the humanitarian relief effort, 
and the relevance of the Nakba to modern-day ref-
ugee crises; 
(5) support the resumed provision of social 
services to Palestinian refugees through the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Ref-
ugees in the Near East; 
(6) support the implementation of Palestinian 
refugees’ rights as enshrined in United Nations Gen-
eral Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights; 
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•HRES 409 IH 
(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 sup-
port for such actions. 
Æ 
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