What is Nakba ?
Nakba is an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” and refers to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, its exiling of Palestinians and making them into refugees, its dispossession of Palestinian property, its destruction of Palestinian cities, towns, and villages, and its attempt to erase the existence of the Palestinian people from its homeland in 1948.
Before, during, and after the establishment of Israel in May 1948, first Zionist militias and later the Israeli military used terrorism and committed massacres and other atrocities to drive Palestinians from their homes. Zionist militias and the Israeli military also systematically looted and demolished Palestinian property. By the time Israel signed armistice agreements with neighboring Arab states in 1949, there were an estimated 750,000 Palestinian refugees (approximately 80 percent of the Palestinian population of that lived on land that became Israel). Israel demolished between 400 and 560 Palestinian villages, town, and cities.
The Nakba is not only a historical event; Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinians and colonization of Palestinian land means that the Nakba is ongoing and accurately defines Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism.