In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home

by Mona Hajjar Halaby

However, following the war of 1948, Palestinian owners of these houses lost their properties because of the “Absentee Property Law” established by the state of Israel. This law applied to all Palestinians, or residents in Palestine, who left their usual place of residence in Palestine for any place inside or outside the country after November 29, 1947, the date of the adoption of the UN Partition Plan (which divided Palestine into a Palestinian state and an Israeli state). The law stated that Israel would confiscate Palestinian homes, land, and bank accounts if their owners left them for a country that was the enemy of Israel, meaning mostly Arab countries.

So many of these things are actually built into the law that I didnt know about.