"The Palestinian refugee issue is the root and heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict" states PA

Headline: “The [PA] government: The right of return is sacred, and international law guarantees it”

“The [PA] government expressed its opposition to and condemnation of the dictates that appeared in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s message. The government emphasized – during its weekly meeting, held yesterday [July 19, 2016] in Ramallah, led by [PA] Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah – that the refugee issue is the root and heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It added that the right of return, which the Israeli Prime Minister calls to concede, is a sacred and legal right, guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and guaranteed as part of the right to self-determination, which the UN recognized in 1946,  and guaranteed by UN General Assembly decision no. 194 that was ratified on Dec. 11, 1948…

The government noted that there is no solution to this conflict without a solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, who were removed from their homes, whose cities and villages were destroyed, and whose land and property was stolen by the force of terror.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call to Palestinians on July 18, 2016, to concede the right of return:

“Where do I have a partner who is ready to acknowledge the finiteness of the conflict, the right of return, so that for the foreseeable future the control from the West of the Jordan [River] and until the [Mediterranean] Sea will be in our hands. States are collapsing and states are on the verge of collapse. If we remove the [Israeli] army and Israeli Security Agency from these places, the first thing to collapse will be the PA, as happened in the Gaza Strip.”