Pelarian Palestine (mengikut Resolusi PBB 194) pada asalnya merangkumi orang Arab yang tempat tinggal biasa mereka terletak di Israel dan orang Yahudi yang tinggal di Palestin Bermandat.[6] Hak mereka untuk pulang diiktiraf dalam Resolusi PBB 194 tahun 1948.[7] Pada hari ini, istilah ini merujuk khusus kepada pewaris keturunan pelarian Arab yang berasal dari Palestin Bermandat, mengikut definisi UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Agensi Bantuan dan Kerja Raya PBB untuk Pelarian Palestin di Timur Dekat). Dalam tahun 2012, bilangan pelarian keturunan pelarian Palestin asal, berdasarkan pendaftaran UNRWA, dianggarkan seramai 4,950,000 orang.[2][3][4][5]Bilangan orang pelarian Palestin asal sudah menurun dari 711,000 orang dalam tahun 1950[1] kepada lebih kurang 30 hingga 50,000 orang dalam tahun 2012.
Morris, Benny, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, (2009) Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15112-1
Reiter, Yitzhak, National Minority, Regional Majority: Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution), (2009) Syracuse Univ Press (Sd). ISBN 978-0-8156-3230-6
^ abcd"[U.S.] Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides (..) affirmed the State Department’s view on the number of Palestinian refugees (..) that the UN and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “provides essential services for approximately 5 million refugees,” (..) Middle East Forum founder Daniel Pipes recently noted in an op-ed for Israel Hayom that only 1 percent of the refugees served by UNRWA fit the agency’s definition of “people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.” The other 99 percent are descendants of refugees."Nides, Tom (U.S. Deputy Secretary of State ) and Daniel Pipes and. "U.S. State Department Affirms Support for 5 Million 'Palestinian Refugees'". News. Algemeiner.com. Dicapai pada 31 May 2012.
^ ab"According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – the main body tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees – there are more than 5 million refugees at present. However, the number of Palestinians alive who were personally displaced during Israel’s War of Independence is estimated to be around 30,000."US Senate dramatically scales down definition of Palestinian ‘refugees’