These have been documented and recognised as such by several international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.Īlong with widespread arrests of Palestinians since its launch, Israel has also taken punitive measures against Palestinian civil society. The unity uprising called for a Palestinian popular mobilisation in the struggle against Israel’s settler-colonial rule and practices akin to apartheid. So far in 2023, 96 Palestinians have been killed during the first four months of 2023. A record high of 204 Palestinians were reportedly killed in 2022, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005. In 2021, 313 Palestinians including 71 minors were reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank (including East Jerusalem) by Israeli security forces.
The 75th anniversary of the Nakba comes at a critical and dangerous juncture that has seen a relentless escalation in Israeli violent interventions against Palestinians in the occupied territories and Gaza, which began with the unity intifada (or uprising) in 2021. The most notorious of these is Itamar Ben-Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party. The violence has only been exacerbated by the return to power at the end of 2022 of Benjamin Netanyahu in an alliance with extremist religious-nationalist Israeli factions and ultra-nationalist politicians. The rest are in the occupied territories, the Gaza Strip and Israel, where they have been subject to discrimination and outbreaks of communal violence. Today, more than 60% of the estimated 14.3 million Palestinians are displaced. The 1948 Palestine war, which led to the creation of the Israeli state, left Palestinian society leaderless, disorganised and scattered. And they see it in the regular violations of their human rights, both inside Israel and in the “occupied territories” and Gaza Strip.įor Palestinians worldwide, the Nakba is remembered as a traumatic rupture that represents their humiliating defeat, the destruction of Palestinian society and severance of links with their homeland. They experience it in the continuing Israeli annexation of their land and attacks launched regularly against their homes in Gaza. What Palestinians call “ongoing Nakba” still generates suffering, destruction of homes and loss of Palestinian lives. They are also marking the fact that the Nakba did not end in 1948, but continues in different forms to this day. Nor just the destruction of more than 400 villages and towns and the killing of thousands others.
When Palestinians commemorate the Nakba (the catastrophe) on May 15, they are not only remembering a violent historical event that took place 75 years ago which led to the uprooting of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. By Dina Matar, SOAS, University of London | –
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