Palestinians on Wednesday commemorated their displacement during the creation of Israel, saying that history was being repeated today in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians as part of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In the West Bank, too, occupied since 1967, Israeli forces have displaced tens of thousands from refugee camps as part of a major military operation.
This year marks the 77th anniversary of the Nakba — “catastrophe” in Arabic — which refers to the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian flags and black ones branded “return” flew at road intersections, while schoolchildren were bussed into the city centre to take part in the weeklong commemoration.
At one event, young boys wearing Palestinian kuffiyeh scarves waved flags and carried a giant replica key, a symbol of the lost homes in what is now Israel that families hope to return to.
No events were planned in Gaza, where more than 19 months of war and Israeli bombardment have left residents destitute.
Moamen al-Sherbini, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, told AFP that he felt history was repeating itself.
“Our lives here in Gaza have become one long Nakba — losing loved ones, our homes destroyed, our livelihoods gone”.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war between Israel and Hamas.
In early May, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded military offensive in Gaza, aimed at the “conquest” of the territory while displacing its people en masse, drawing international condemnation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working to find third countries to take in Gaza’s population, months after US President Donald Trump suggested they be expelled and the territory redeveloped as a holiday destination.
Speaking from Nuseirat in central Gaza, 36-year-old Malak Radwan said that “Nakba Day is no longer just a memory — it’s a daily reality we live in Gaza. My house was destroyed, now just a pile of stones, and we have no shelter.”
– ‘New Nakba every day’ –
“This is a miserable day in the lives of Palestinian refugees,” said 52-year-old Nael Nakhleh in Ramallah, whose family comes from the village of al-Majdal near Jaffa in what is now Israel.
Palestinian refugees maintain their demand to return to the villages and cities they or their relatives left in 1948 that are now inside Israel.
The “right of return” remains a core issue in the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Nakhleh, who lives in the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, made a point of joining the memorial activities in the city.
“Despite the painful memories, we are still living through a new Nakba every day, through the Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank,” he said.
Israel’s military launched a still ongoing large-scale operation in the West Bank in January that has displaced at least 38,000 people, according to the United Nations.
The operation, which Israel says aims to eradicate Palestinian armed groups, has primarily targeted refugee camps in the northern West Bank and involved army evacuation orders and home demolitions.
Wasel Abu Yusef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee, told AFP that Palestinians “remain more committed than ever to their right of return.”