The Nakba is a term that denotes the mass forced displacement in 1948 of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands.

And 74 years ago, the Zionist movement - with the support of Britain - succeeded in controlling by force of arms the greater part of Palestine and declaring the establishment of Israel.


stages of displacement

- The anniversary summarizes stages of displacement that uprooted Palestinians from 20 cities and about 400 villages, whose properties and farms became part of the occupying state.

The Nakba commemorates at least 10,000 Palestinians who were killed in a series of massacres and killings, most of which are still unknown, while 3 times that number were injured.

- The Palestinian Nakba did not begin in 1948, but much earlier. In 1799, during the French campaign against the Arab world, Napoleon Bonaparte published a statement calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland on the land of Palestine under French protection with the aim of strengthening the French presence in the region.

Napoleon's plan did not succeed at that time, but it did not die either, as the British revived this plan in the late 19th century, and this was embodied beginning in 1897 when the Zionist Congress called for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

- After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I (1914-1918) and the establishment of the British Mandate in Palestine, the British colonial powers began implementing their plan to build a Zionist state on the land of Palestine.

1917: The Balfour Declaration announced British support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, and the promise came in a letter written by the former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild - one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Britain - to refer him to the Zionist Union in Great Britain and Ireland .

The Zionists flocked to Palestine with the support of the British, and the Jews bought a number of Palestinian lands to build Zionist settlements on them, which led to the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, and all this was done with the full support of the British.

- The Palestinians did not surrender in front of these moves, and the efforts of the resistance in 1936 led to an Arab revolution against British imperialism and Zionist settler colonialism.

1939: The British crushed the Arab Revolt, and the Palestinians found themselves facing two enemies;

The British colonial forces and the Zionist armed gangs, whose numbers increased to reach 40 thousand people at that time.


partition plan

November 29, 1947: The United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

The Jews in Palestine at that time constituted a third of the population, the majority of whom came from Europe during the few years preceding this date.

The Jews used to control an area of ​​less than 6% of the historical state of Palestine, but the plan proposed by the United Nations allocated 55% of the area to them.

The Palestinians and their Arab allies rejected the proposed plan, while the Zionist movement approved it, especially as it legitimized the idea of ​​building a Jewish state on the Arab land of Palestine, but it did not agree to the proposed borders. Therefore, the Zionists launched intensive campaigns to seize more of the lands of historic Palestine.

- 1948: The Zionists took control of dozens of Palestinian cities and villages and expelled their Palestinian residents from their homes by force, under the eyes of the British Mandate authorities.

May 14, 1948: The British decided to end their mandate for Palestine, and on the same day - on which the British Mandate forces officially withdrew from Palestine - the head of the Zionist Agency, David Ben-Gurion, announced the establishment of the State of Israel.

Within a few minutes, the two largest world powers - the United States and the Soviet Union - recognized Israel, and the Palestinians became stateless.

After that, the Zionists continued plans to purify the land of Palestine of its inhabitants, and they made every effort to erase the Palestinian heritage and culture from existence, and this situation resulted in prolonged suffering for millions of Palestinian refugees.

The Christians of Palestine were not immune from the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people in 1948, as they were subjected to displacement, displacement and persecution, just like the Muslims.

According to the Secretary-General of the Islamic Christian Committee Hanna Issa, among the Palestinians who were displaced and experienced asylum - 65 years ago - are between 40 and 50 thousand Arab Christians, who made up more than a third of the Christian population in Palestine in 1948.

Issa said in a statement that Al Jazeera Net received a copy of it that the number of Christians used to exceed 30,000 Christians in Jerusalem in 1944, then their number gradually decreased to less than 5,000 people today.

Right of Return

1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was issued, in which Article 13 states that every person has the right to return to his country.

This was also confirmed by the Fourth Geneva Convention and Assembly Resolution No. 194-D of December 11, 1948, paragraph 11, which stipulates that refugees who wish to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors must be allowed to return as soon as possible, and that they must pay Compensation for the property of those who decide not to return home and for all lost or damaged property, when, in accordance with principles of international law and equity, such loss or damage must be made reparation by the responsible governments or authorities.

- Over the past years, the Palestinian people have been commemorating the memory, to remain in the memory of successive generations, until the full restoration of rights and the liberation of the land from occupation, and in response to the leaders of the occupation who raise the slogan "The old die and the young forget."

Among the activities that greet the Palestinian people;

The March of Return and Breaking the Siege, which was launched in March 2018, and is still continuing, call for a return to the occupied land and a break in the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than 12 years.

May 15, 2019: The Supreme National Authority of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege called on the people of the Gaza Strip to demonstrate peacefully on the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip, to commemorate the 71st Nakba, and to demand the implementation of international resolutions on the Palestinian cause, including Resolution 194 on the right of return and breaking the siege for the resilient sector.