Creating new perspectives since 2009
May 15, 2026 at 3:23 pm
Palestinians march carrying flags and symbolic keys representing the right of return during a demonstration marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine, on May 12, 2026. [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Every year on May 15, the Palestinian people commemorate the Nakba that befell them in 1948, when Zionist militias and gangs forcibly displaced over 900,000 Palestinians from their cities and villages, completely destroyed approximately 531 villages, and committed more than 70 massacres in which over 15,000 people were killed. Seventy eight years later, the Israeli war machine is reproducing the same scene—but with far deadlier tools, and amidst a shameful international silence and unjustifiable inaction.
The 1948 Nakba was not a passing war. It was the culmination of a colonial settler project that began taking shape in the late nineteenth century. Backed by colonial powers, Zionist gangs expelled between 780,000 and 957,000 Palestinians. Their society was destroyed, and they were displaced to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighboring Arab countries. The Arab identity of the land was erased: Palestinian villages and towns were wiped off the map and renamed with Hebrew names.
