The Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, romanized: an-Nakbah, ’the “disaster”, “catastrophe”, or “cataclysm”‘), also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian Arabs.

The term is used to describe both the events of 1948 and the ongoing persecution, displacement, and occupation of the Palestinians, both in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the region. The foundational events of the Nakba took place during and shortly after the 1948 Palestine war, including 78% of Mandatory Palestine being declared as Israel, the expulsion and flight of 700,000 Palestinians, the related depopulation and destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages by Zionist militias and subsequent geographical erasure, the denial of the Palestinian right of return, the creation of permanent Palestinian refugees and the “shattering of Palestinian society”. The expulsion of the Palestinians has since been described by some historians as ethnic cleansing. In 1998, Yasser Arafat proposed that Palestinians should mark the 50th anniversary of the Nakba declaring 15 May, the day after Israeli independence in 1948, as Nakba Day, formalizing a date that had been unofficially used as early as 1949.The Nakba greatly influenced the Palestinian culture and is a foundational symbol of Palestinian identity, together with “Handala“, the keffiyeh and the symbolic key. Countless books, songs and poems have been written about the Nakba. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish described the Nakba as “an extended present that promises to continue in the future.”

Links:
15 May – Commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Nakba at UN Headquarters in New York

Palestijnen 75 jaar weg uit Israël, herinnering aan de uittocht nog steeds levend

The Long Journey of Palestine Refugees: A Chronology of Palestinian Displacement and Dispossession

Herdenking van 76 jaar Nakba Amsterdam

Nakba Herdenking 2024

XR Justice Now! kleurt fonteinen bloedrood: Nederland heeft bloed aan zijn handen

Agenda – Gaza−Israël oorlog van 2023 / October 2023 Gaza−Israel conflict