Documenting a Path to Nakba Reparations

Before the Zionist Movement could proclaim the State of Israel’s in 1948, terrorizing Zionist militias displaced, denationalized, dispossessed and expelled the majority of Palestine’s population (770–780,000) from, their land, homes, villages and cities. Using institutional structures such as the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund, and through layers of Zionist laws such as the Absentee Property Law, Israel reclassified inhabited lands as legally abandoned.

The Bseiso family, based in Bi’r al-Sabi` (a.k.a. Beersheba), in the southern Naqab region of Palestine, retained extensive records of their landholdings and other properties that Israel had confiscated after their flight in 1948. To date, no litigation has leveraged an archive of this scale or detail in pursuit of reparations for those crimes committed at Israel’s immensely destructive founding. The Bseiso family’s case represents the first attempt to convert an evidentiary archive of this magnitude into a formal legal pursuit of reparations (restitution, rehabilitation, compensation, guarantees of nonrepetition, etc.) under applicable norms of international and domestic law (of the countries where litigation will be initiated).

Zionist militias seized the Bseiso family home and other possessions at gunpoint and the new colonial-settler state officially declared them to be “Israeli.” The surviving original land deeds, contracts, and tax receipts serve as irrefutable proof of ownership. Mahrous Mustafa Bseiso, a respected businessman and landowner, once held some of the most-valuable real estate in the heart of Bi`r al-Sabi`. Thousands of dunams of those holdings and buildings now atop them now stand as a testament to what was stolen. Yet, behind these developments lies a deeper truth: a legacy erased, an inheritance stolen, and livelihoods and opportunities denied.

This Bseiso family reparation project aims to pave the way for Palestinian dispossession victims to develop legal argument by initiating civil claims for reparations through various national jurisdictions against current holders, renters, and possessors of such stolen property. The meticulous documentation of the rightful ownership over land and properties owned by the Bseisos may be a first step in a worldwide attempt to restore at least a measure of justice to the survivors of the Nakba and other victims of Zionism and to bring attention to their claims.

This effort forms an obvious parallel to the claims of European Jews whose properties were looted by the Nazis. The process is long and arduous, and requires careful professional work, but it needs to be undertaken. However, the global consensus, enshrined in national and international legal instruments, has long called for justice, reparation and the nonrecognition of the outcomes of crime, and that war criminal not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of their larceny without accountability and redress for their victims.

The values and assets to be recovered can be used to assist other survivors of the Nakba, many of whom live in abject poverty, languish in refugee camps, or are continuing to suffer its consequences in the form of ongoing displacement, dispossession, occupation, apartheid and, now genocide, including those in Gaza and elsewhere whom Israel has serially dispossessed and displaced.

Toward this end, the Bseiso Family Archive (BFA) is launching a litigation-financing campaign to pursue a series of landmark legal actions for reparations and restitution on behalf of the Bseiso family and potentially other dispossessed Palestinians. This initiative is grounded in a historically rich, fully digitized archive of deeds, land tax receipts, and legal correspondence, all of which are verified and preserved at Columbia University (USA). The BF Archive complements and is further connected with the UN’s historical Palestine refugee archives (UNRWA and the UNCCP).

Enter the Bseiso Family Archive

See also:

“Remedy and Reparation for Palestine,” Land Times/أحوال الأرض, Issue 32 (May 2025)

“Israel’s Military Doctrine: Targeting Homes, Shelters and Shelter Seekers,” Land Times/أحوال الأرض, Issue 32 (May 2025)

“A Regional Approach to Remedy Displacement? ,” Land Times/أحوال الأرض, Issue 32 (May 2025)

”الإنصاف وجبر الضرر لفلسطين، “أحوال الأرضLand Times/، عدد 32 (أيار/مايو 2025)

”العقيدة العسكرية الإسرائيلية: استهداف المنازل، والملاجئ، والباحثين عن المأوى،“  أحوال الأرضLand Times/، عدد 32 (أيار/مايو 2025)

”هل يمكن إيجاد نهج إقليمي لانصاف النازحين داخلياً؟ “ أحوال الأرضLand Times/، عدد 32 (أيار/مايو 2025)

Photo on front page: Excerpt from the Bseiso Family Archives: Doc 6: Mortgage Property Agreement, 1927, an example of the original title deeds and other administrative documents affirming Bseiso family lands and other assets that Israeli force acquired by force. Photo on this page: Some of the properties that stand today on the Bseiso family lands in the heart of what Israeli’s today call ‘Beersheva’ and subject to restitution and reparation of their rightful Palestinian owners. Source: BFA.