Ziad Awaisi, an official in ADRID, a committee representing the internally displaced, told MEE that the Israeli authorities had exploited the refugees' extreme vulnerability in the state's early years and the fact that the Palestinian minority was living under harsh military rule until 1966.
"My grandfather told me that people from his village, of Saffuriya, were threatened in 1949 with being denied an identity card unless they sold their land to the government.
"Others were told they would never get a licence to build a home, at a time when they were still living in United Nations tents. The security services had a lot of ways to intimidate the refugees."
Suleiman said he could remember his father being visited in the 1960s by the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence services, when they had tried to pressure him into selling.
"My father was a strong nationalist and refused, but I believe some other families from our village did sign, either because they were desperate for money or because they were scared," he said.
According to Cohen's best estimate, based on data about compensation received under the 1953 law, as much as a quarter of the land belonging to the refugees may have been sold to the Israeli state over subsequent decades.
Alexandre Kedar, a law professor at Haifa University, said most compensation to Palestinian refugees in the state's early years had been based on outdated land values that significantly reduced the sums they received.
"Present absentees"The latest reports of lawyers approaching families indicate that efforts to pressure the refugees into land sales have not ended.
There are also rumors that Palestinian lawyers from Israel have been visiting refugee camps in Jordan trying to get refugees there to sign documents transferring their lands to Israel.
According to Mohammed Kayal, a senior official in ADRID, the lawyers are paid by the Israeli state for every refugee they find and persuade to sell their land.
A fifth of Israel's Palestinian citizens are believed to be classified as "present absentees" according to the Absentee Property Law -- denoting that they are present in Israel, but absent from their land.
Rights group have warned that the lawyers accused of tricking the refugees tell them that a recent high court ruling entitles them to a one-off compensation deal.
In fact, the court case applies exclusively to those affected by a different law, governing compulsory land purchase orders.
The judge in that case ruled that Israeli citizens who had originally refused government compensation could apply for it for a limited time, even if the statute of limitations had expired.
The window for applying for the retrospective financial compensation in these cases closes at the end of next month.
Suhad Bishara, of Adalah, said the lawyers had been misleading refugee families like the Suleimans.
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