Dr. Yousef Kamel Ibrahim

In February 2005, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released a study conducted by Yousef Ibrahim, a professor of geography and population studies at al-Aqsa University in Gaza, which said that the Arab population would reach 6.3 million in 2010, compared to 5.7 million Jews, provided that the current growth ratios continued along the same pattern,[33] consciously utilizing the words of Israeli demographic expert Sergio DellaPergola, who said that "the direction is quite obvious.

Since that year, the Palestinian refugees who have been displaced forcibly by such Zionist armed gangs, remember bitterly the creation of the Hebrew state on their national soil, Prof. Yousef Ibrahim of the Gaza-based Al-Aqsa University's Department of Geography and Demography, wrote.

A new study by Ibrahim titled (Characteristic Features of the Palestinian People since the Nakba), a copy of which was received by the IPC, showed that the 'Jews have never been able to create their state unless their number in Palestine was relatively large by the help of the then British mandate on Palestine'.

The Jews at that time had purchased large acres of Palestinian-owned lands in preparation of creating their entity.

Prof. Ibrahim demonstrated that the Palestinian struggle against the Hebrew state has never been taking one dimension; it has been at many levels such as the existence, the religious, the colonial, the geographic, the demographic and the occupational.
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Mr. Ibrahim expects that by the end of 2005, the population number will increase, making clear that the Gaza Strip's population alone will have to amount to 1.399 million, as the West Bank's 2.408 millions, while those inside the Hebrew state (Arabs of the 1948 borders), 1.350 million.

In 2004, natural growth rate reached %3.4 in Palestinian territories; %3.1 in the West Bank and %3.8 in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Ibrahim explained.

As for fertility rate in such territories reached 6.04 new baby in 1997, compared with 5.6 in 2003.

A Plan to Reactivate the Refugee Problem:

In another new study done by Prof. Ibrahim and a copy of which received by the IPC, under the title (A Plan to Reactivate the Refugee Problem and Protecting Refugees' Rights Including the Rights to Return), it has been proposed a series of steps at all levels to lead refugees from Diaspora to being returned to their homeland eventually.

Prof. Ibrahim demonstrated four levels; political, media, academic, scientific, social and international.

At the political level, the researcher provides three proposals regarding a special committee to build ties with official political parties and briefing them on the latest developments concerning the refugees problem.

At the scientific and academic level, Prof. Ibrahim suggested that the problem of refugees be documented according to the latest techniques in a way that ensures keeping information on refugees of West Bank, Gaza Strip and the 1948 territories.

He also suggested that a special website be designed for the refugees problem to include information on symposiums, leaflets and bulletins, etc…

In addition, new channels of communications be maintained with relevant local and international bodies and a special annual conference be held.

He proposed as well keeping relations with senior refugees, from a social perspective, to urge them interact with the problem of refugees, in coordination with heads of refugees families and neighborhood's committees.

At the international level, Prof. Ibrahim suggested formation of a team of experts of international law including Palestinians, Arabs, Europeans and international volunteers, just to set a large-scale plan to promote voluntary return of refugees.

Dr. Yousef Ibrahim, the professor of Geography and Population Studies at Al Aqsa University in Gaza, said that the Jewish immigration to Israel, which the Zionist organization labeled as 'return', has turned to a weapon to fight the Palestinian people with in the demographic battle.

And as each day passes, the image becomes more clear that the Zionist project in historic Palestine is losing grounds to the Palestinians on the demographic level.

Dr. Ibrahim also added, in an interview with IPC, that the statistics released by the Israeli Census Bureau showed that 81 percent of the residents of historic Palestine are Jews, equaling 5.45 million individuals, including 0.29 million new immigrants who were not yet registered at the Ministry of Interior as Jews.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, the population of Israel grew by 116 thousand individuals in 2003, which is considered the least growth rate in 13 years for Israel, pointing out that the immigration budget of 2003 contributed only to an increase of 9 percent, meaning 23 thousand new immigrants, compared to 34 thousand in 2002.
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According to a demographic study released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Dr. Ibrahim said that the Arab population would reach 6.3 million in 2010, compared to 5.7 million Jews, provided that the current growth ratios continued along the same pattern.
...
And if the Jews abroad didn't face a catastrophe, then there are no indications that this pattern would change," Dr. Ibrahim said, pointing out that the official figures said the number of immigrants in 2003 was the least since 1989, and was 31 percent less than 2002.

Jewish Agency and ImmigrationAbout the immigration to historic Palestine, Dr. Ibrahim made clear that the Jewish Agency has spread more than 22 thousand immigrants, half of them from the former Soviet Union, across the occupied Palestinian territories in 2003.The Jewish Rabbinic authority, however, does not consider almost half of the Russian immigrants as Jews, but rather benefiting from the Israeli 'right to return' by being relative to Jews, in order to obtain the Israeli citizenship and improve their miserable financial situation by living and working in Israel.

Ebbing Jewish Immigration WavesDr. Ibrahim further explained that the Jewish Agency relate the steady decrease in immigration rates to several correlated reasons, mainly the decrease of human reservoir in the former Soviet Union, due to pas intensive immigration waves to historic Palestine, and immigrations to other countries such as Germany.
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About Sharon and immigration, Dr. Ibrahim viewed that since the declaration of an Israeli state in 1948 all Israeli prime ministers called -in various degrees of success- on Jews to immigrate to Israel and live in it based on biblical claims to the land of Palestine, but Sharon went farther than any other prime minister, to demanding the Jews of France to immediately immigrate to Israel, as well as planning to bring all the Jews of Ethiopia, known as "Falasha", who are estimated at 20 thousand Jews, to settle in historic Palestine by the end of 2007.
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As of next June, Dr. Ibrahim revealed, the Ethiopian Jews immigrating to Israel would be doubled from 300 immigrants every month to 600, in addition to instructing the ministries of interior and finance in Israel to prepare a full plan of absorbing those Jews in Israel within three months, reminding that there were 17 thousand Falasha Jews waiting to be allowed to travel to Israel in Ethiopia.

Falasha Jews: Free LaborDr. Ibrahim pointed out to the huge dispute between Jewish rabbis in Israel about whether Ethiopian Jews truly belong to Judaism, as the rabbi Rozen Ezra, who is one of the responsible persons of reviewing immigration forms, said that 31 percent of the Ethiopian Jews who were brought to Israel over the past three years were not Jews at all, questioning the standards of rabbis Menachem and Waldmann, who approved their immigration forms over the past 20 years.

Dr. Ibrahim also noted that Ethiopian Jews are subjected to extreme racial discrimination in Israel based on their color, and cases have been recorded in Israeli hospitals where organs donated by Falasha Jews were rejected by hospital officials based on racist reasons.Ethiopian Jews are usually gathered in small and impoverished neighborhoods in fringe areas of Israel, as well as holding most of the jobs with meager wages and hard labor, and serving in the most dangerous areas among the Israeli forces.

Gaza Withdrawal and the Demographic BattleAbout the relation between the withdrawal from Gaza and the continuous demographic battles, Dr. Ibrahim said, "there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in June to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in July to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million Palestinians live million Palestinians live, and that has become necessary for Israel to retain its 'Jewish and democratic' character."
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Dr. Ibrahim also noted that the immigrants from the United States have increased slightly, while the French and Ethiopian immigrants remained steady.
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According to Dr. Ibrahim, Lieberman said that "my plan might be different from any other plan in two concepts; the first is that from what I heard from everybody so far, they propose a national state for the Palestinians, without including any Jew in it, and on the other hand they want to turn Israel into a bi-national state.
...
Finally, Dr. Ibrahim said that absorbing thousands of Ethiopian Jews and the withdrawal from Gaza are just Zionist attempts to delay the demographic battle, which is inevitable and Israel would lose it without a solution based on establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Dr. Yousef Ibrahim, the professor of Geography and Population Studies at Al Aqsa University in Gaza, said that the Jewish immigration to Israel, which the Zionist organization labeled as 'return', has turned to a weapon to fight the Palestinian people with in the demographic battle.

And as each day passes, the image becomes more clear that the Zionist project in historic Palestine is losing grounds to the Palestinians on the demographic level.

Dr. Ibrahim also added, in an interview with IPC, that the statistics released by the Israeli Census Bureau showed that 81 percent of the residents of historic Palestine are Jews, equaling 5.45 million individuals, including 0.29 million new immigrants who were not yet registered at the Ministry of Interior as Jews.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, the population of Israel grew by 116 thousand individuals in 2003, which is considered the least growth rate in 13 years for Israel, pointing out that the immigration budget of 2003 contributed only to an increase of 9 percent, meaning 23 thousand new immigrants, compared to 34 thousand in 2002.
...
According to a demographic study released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Dr. Ibrahim said that the Arab population would reach 6.3 million in 2010, compared to 5.7 million Jews, provided that the current growth ratios continued along the same pattern.
...
And if the Jews abroad didn't face a catastrophe, then there are no indications that this pattern would change," Dr. Ibrahim said, pointing out that the official figures said the number of immigrants in 2003 was the least since 1989, and was 31 percent less than 2002.

Jewish Agency and ImmigrationAbout the immigration to historic Palestine, Dr. Ibrahim made clear that the Jewish Agency has spread more than 22 thousand immigrants, half of them from the former Soviet Union, across the occupied Palestinian territories in 2003.The Jewish Rabbinic authority, however, does not consider almost half of the Russian immigrants as Jews, but rather benefiting from the Israeli 'right to return' by being relative to Jews, in order to obtain the Israeli citizenship and improve their miserable financial situation by living and working in Israel.

Ebbing Jewish Immigration WavesDr. Ibrahim further explained that the Jewish Agency relate the steady decrease in immigration rates to several correlated reasons, mainly the decrease of human reservoir in the former Soviet Union, due to pas intensive immigration waves to historic Palestine, and immigrations to other countries such as Germany.
...
About Sharon and immigration, Dr. Ibrahim viewed that since the declaration of an Israeli state in 1948 all Israeli prime ministers called -in various degrees of success- on Jews to immigrate to Israel and live in it based on biblical claims to the land of Palestine, but Sharon went farther than any other prime minister, to demanding the Jews of France to immediately immigrate to Israel, as well as planning to bring all the Jews of Ethiopia, known as "Falasha", who are estimated at 20 thousand Jews, to settle in historic Palestine by the end of 2007.
...
As of next June, Dr. Ibrahim revealed, the Ethiopian Jews immigrating to Israel would be doubled from 300 immigrants every month to 600, in addition to instructing the ministries of interior and finance in Israel to prepare a full plan of absorbing those Jews in Israel within three months, reminding that there were 17 thousand Falasha Jews waiting to be allowed to travel to Israel in Ethiopia.

Falasha Jews: Free LaborDr. Ibrahim pointed out to the huge dispute between Jewish rabbis in Israel about whether Ethiopian Jews truly belong to Judaism, as the rabbi Rozen Ezra, who is one of the responsible persons of reviewing immigration forms, said that 31 percent of the Ethiopian Jews who were brought to Israel over the past three years were not Jews at all, questioning the standards of rabbis Menachem and Waldmann, who approved their immigration forms over the past 20 years.

Dr. Ibrahim also noted that Ethiopian Jews are subjected to extreme racial discrimination in Israel based on their color, and cases have been recorded in Israeli hospitals where organs donated by Falasha Jews were rejected by hospital officials based on racist reasons.Ethiopian Jews are usually gathered in small and impoverished neighborhoods in fringe areas of Israel, as well as holding most of the jobs with meager wages and hard labor, and serving in the most dangerous areas among the Israeli forces.

Gaza Withdrawal and the Demographic BattleAbout the relation between the withdrawal from Gaza and the continuous demographic battles, Dr. Ibrahim said, "there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in June to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in July to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million Palestinians live million Palestinians live, and that has become necessary for Israel to retain its 'Jewish and democratic' character."
...
Dr. Ibrahim also noted that the immigrants from the United States have increased slightly, while the French and Ethiopian immigrants remained steady.
...
According to Dr. Ibrahim, Lieberman said that "my plan might be different from any other plan in two concepts; the first is that from what I heard from everybody so far, they propose a national state for the Palestinians, without including any Jew in it, and on the other hand they want to turn Israel into a bi-national state.
...
Finally, Dr. Ibrahim said that absorbing thousands of Ethiopian Jews and the withdrawal from Gaza are just Zionist attempts to delay the demographic battle, which is inevitable and Israel would lose it without a solution based on establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Dr. Yousef Ibrahim asserted that the issue of Israeli settlements reflected an important and sensitive perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as Israel continues to follow a preprogrammed policy aiming to enhance and intensify the settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially during the Israeli invasion and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

Dr. Ibrahim, who is a geography lecturer at the Al Aqsa University of Gaza, and an expert on the geographical and demographical conflict issues, viewed in an interview with IPC the different hazards that might result in case the Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza Strip, mainly that Sharon's disengagement plan stipulated the exchange of Gaza Strip with the West Bank, the expanding of settlement activities in the West Bank, Judaizing Jerusalem and dismembering the West Bank, not to mention the completion of the Apartheid Wall, which would ruin the chances for any possibility to establish a true and viable Palestinian state.
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Dr. Ibrahim: The issue of settlements was and continue to be the most prominent issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as Israel - since it occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 - has established settlements in these occupied lands according to a preprogrammed policy, aiming to reinstate its presence in these territories and to eliminate any chance of establishing an independent and contiguous Palestinian state with economic sustainability.
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Dr. Ibrahim: In case the Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza Strip, the settlements would become part of the Gaza Strip area again, which should be invested for the interest of the Palestinian people, especially economic projects that would ease the unemployment and overcrowded population, as well as preventing the vandals and thieves from taking control or looting these lands, because they would be a property of all the Palestinian people.
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Dr. Ibrahim: Yes the PNA, in cooperation with the other resistance factions, will be able, under an umbrella of unity, to maintain the resources of the Palestinian people, disallowing any person regardless of his rank or position to take control over or exploit these lands.

IPC: What are the right policies and mechanisms the PNA must take to ensure that?

Dr. Ibrahim: First: Not to undermine Sharon's plan, under the pretext of waiting for it to be cleared or formulated, thus risking Sharon surprising the Palestinian people with the withdrawal without preparing for it.
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Dr. Ibrahim: The dismantling of the Eretz industrial zone has many repercussions, including political, economic and social.
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Dr. Ibrahim: There has been discourse about a so-called "Zionist" state, including the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in addition to what Sharon announced about his intention to dismantle settlements in Gaza Strip.
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Dr. Ibrahim: The Yedioth Ahronoth Israeli newspaper revealed that the Israeli government is studying a proposal of the World Bank "buying" the Israeli settlements evacuated in Gaza Strip, and the money paid for the settlements to be held as a "future credit", to be used by Israeli occupying forces as possible compensations for the Palestinians during a comprehensive and final political settlements with them.
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Dr. Ibrahim: The economic situation might become very difficult in Gaza Strip if it remained under siege and its border crossings were not opened for foreign trade.

Dr. Yousef Ibrahim, the professor of Geography and Population Studies at Al Aqsa University in Gaza, said that the Jewish immigration to Israel, which the Zionist organization labeled as 'return', has turned to a weapon to fight the Palestinian people with in the demographic battle.

And as each day passes, the image becomes more clear that the Zionist project in historic Palestine is losing grounds to the Palestinians on the demographic level.

Dr. Ibrahim also added, in an interview with IPC, that the statistics released by the Israeli Census Bureau showed that 81 percent of the residents of historic Palestine are Jews, equaling 5.45 million individuals, including 0.29 million new immigrants who were not yet registered at the Ministry of Interior as Jews.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, the population of Israel grew by 116 thousand individuals in 2003, which is considered the least growth rate in 13 years for Israel, pointing out that the immigration budget of 2003 contributed only to an increase of 9 percent, meaning 23 thousand new immigrants, compared to 34 thousand in 2002.
...
According to a demographic study released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Dr. Ibrahim said that the Arab population would reach 6.3 million in 2010, compared to 5.7 million Jews, provided that the current growth ratios continued along the same pattern.
...
And if the Jews abroad didn't face a catastrophe, then there are no indications that this pattern would change," Dr. Ibrahim said, pointing out that the official figures said the number of immigrants in 2003 was the least since 1989, and was 31 percent less than 2002.

Jewish Agency and ImmigrationAbout the immigration to historic Palestine, Dr. Ibrahim made clear that the Jewish Agency has spread more than 22 thousand immigrants, half of them from the former Soviet Union, across the occupied Palestinian territories in 2003.The Jewish Rabbinic authority, however, does not consider almost half of the Russian immigrants as Jews, but rather benefiting from the Israeli 'right to return' by being relative to Jews, in order to obtain the Israeli citizenship and improve their miserable financial situation by living and working in Israel.

Ebbing Jewish Immigration WavesDr. Ibrahim further explained that the Jewish Agency relate the steady decrease in immigration rates to several correlated reasons, mainly the decrease of human reservoir in the former Soviet Union, due to pas intensive immigration waves to historic Palestine, and immigrations to other countries such as Germany.
...
About Sharon and immigration, Dr. Ibrahim viewed that since the declaration of an Israeli state in 1948 all Israeli prime ministers called -in various degrees of success- on Jews to immigrate to Israel and live in it based on biblical claims to the land of Palestine, but Sharon went farther than any other prime minister, to demanding the Jews of France to immediately immigrate to Israel, as well as planning to bring all the Jews of Ethiopia, known as "Falasha", who are estimated at 20 thousand Jews, to settle in historic Palestine by the end of 2007.
...
As of next June, Dr. Ibrahim revealed, the Ethiopian Jews immigrating to Israel would be doubled from 300 immigrants every month to 600, in addition to instructing the ministries of interior and finance in Israel to prepare a full plan of absorbing those Jews in Israel within three months, reminding that there were 17 thousand Falasha Jews waiting to be allowed to travel to Israel in Ethiopia.

Falasha Jews: Free LaborDr. Ibrahim pointed out to the huge dispute between Jewish rabbis in Israel about whether Ethiopian Jews truly belong to Judaism, as the rabbi Rozen Ezra, who is one of the responsible persons of reviewing immigration forms, said that 31 percent of the Ethiopian Jews who were brought to Israel over the past three years were not Jews at all, questioning the standards of rabbis Menachem and Waldmann, who approved their immigration forms over the past 20 years.

Dr. Ibrahim also noted that Ethiopian Jews are subjected to extreme racial discrimination in Israel based on their color, and cases have been recorded in Israeli hospitals where organs donated by Falasha Jews were rejected by hospital officials based on racist reasons.Ethiopian Jews are usually gathered in small and impoverished neighborhoods in fringe areas of Israel, as well as holding most of the jobs with meager wages and hard labor, and serving in the most dangerous areas among the Israeli forces.

Gaza Withdrawal and the Demographic BattleAbout the relation between the withdrawal from Gaza and the continuous demographic battles, Dr. Ibrahim said, "there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in June to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.there is a tight and direct relation between the withdrawal and the demographic battle, as Sharon has called in July to withdraw from Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million Palestinians live million Palestinians live, and that has become necessary for Israel to retain its 'Jewish and democratic' character."
...
Dr. Ibrahim also noted that the immigrants from the United States have increased slightly, while the French and Ethiopian immigrants remained steady.
...
According to Dr. Ibrahim, Lieberman said that "my plan might be different from any other plan in two concepts; the first is that from what I heard from everybody so far, they propose a national state for the Palestinians, without including any Jew in it, and on the other hand they want to turn Israel into a bi-national state.
...
Finally, Dr. Ibrahim said that absorbing thousands of Ethiopian Jews and the withdrawal from Gaza are just Zionist attempts to delay the demographic battle, which is inevitable and Israel would lose it without a solution based on establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

These views were presented in the doctoral thesis prepared by Yousef Ibrahim, head of the Department of Geography at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, titled; "Inhabitants of the Palestinian state: Problems and policies" for which he was awarded a doctorate with by the Institute of Research and Arab Studies.He said that this scenario may be selected by the Zionist government in a deal, it considers a final solution for the refugee problem, where this return will take on humanitarian grounds and not as a result of the 1948 war; this return will also come under the notion of family reunification, and in the framework of solutions that make it individual rather than return of a people.On their part, those returned refugees must provide assurances of abiding by the conditions of return as set out in Resolution 194, i.e. accept living in peace within the Jewish state, not disturbing its security nor breaking the state's laws.On the other hand, also an agreement to a limited return to the Palestinian entity, because of fears of disturbing the delicate demographic balance according to the Zionist claim.

The author expected a return of 150,000 to Israel, and a return of 500,000 to the Palestinian state, pointing to the willingness of the Zionists to receive these refugees in the period 2003-2008; this period could be further extended to ten years.

Dr. Ibrahim said that this scenario bears huge dangers, among these is that these refugees will face a problem in social and economic integration within the Zionist society.This problem may be multiplied, if the refugees feel that conditions had improved in the awaited Palestinian state.In addition to the large number of Palestinians who will fall under strict surveillance of the Zionist authorities, subjecting them to psychological and social pressures, which may force them to emigrate to other countries - moreover many of them do not want to return to live under Zionist rule.

Ibrahim pointed out that the funds that are being talked about will be earmarked for the compensation of these refugees for the possessions they had lost, and for establishment of residential complexes for them, as well as projects that will provide them with job opportunities.

He said that the foundations on which this scenario rests depend on; success in the peace process and reaching a final agreement by 2003, ending the Arab-Zionist conflict, acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip side-by-side with the Zionist state, rejection of implementation of international resolutions, Resolution 194 foremost, which stipulates the return of the refugees to Palestine occupied in 1948, in addition to facilitating granting citizenship to those refugees who do not wish to return, for social, economic, or political reasons - granting them full citizenship of the countries in which they are found or others they may move to, while priority will be given to the return of refugees from Lebanon and Syria due to the social, economic, or political conditions they suffer.

Ibrahim made clear that in light of the expectations of the return of refugees as an outcome of the peace settlement process, it is expected that a number will arrive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they will be distributed in such a way that does not aggravate the problem of high population density in some residential areas, and does not affect the nature of the geographic distribution of all the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in an unbalanced way; concentrating on settling the areas of Al-Aqwar and Jericho, considered areas of low population, and so the number or returnees to Gaza has been greatly reduced so as not to increase the problem of dense population.
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Ibrahim said that the right of the Palestinian people to return relies fundamentally on their right to self-determination from which arises the right to reverse the process of expulsion, and erasing the effects of the aggression that the Palestinian people suffered in 1948.Furthermore, there was the right of repossessing the lands and belongings that were plundered from individuals of this people in the same aggression.

He asserted that the war of 1948 was not the only reason for expulsion of Palestinians from their lands, rather the roots of the problem began at the end of the Ottoman era, when influential persons started to register vast tracts of land in their names, generally illegally, and from there selling these on to Zionist organisations.

Dr. Yousef Kamel Ibrahim, head of the geography department at El-Aksa University in Gaza, released a new academic study recently that found that the number of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs will equal and even exceed the number of Jews living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in early 2006.His study, written in conjunction with the Demography Institute, states that the number of Palestinian residents and Israeli Arabs in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea will rise in early 2006 to 5,467,472, while the number of Jews will come to 5,453,100.