SUPPORTERS of the Palestinian people today marked the anniversary of the mass expulsion from what is now Israel with protests and other events at a time of mounting concern that another Nakba is taking place.
The Nakba, “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their lands before and during the war surrounding its creation in 1948.
More than twice that number have been displaced within Gaza since the start of the latest war, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack during which some 1,200 people were killed.
Israel’s invasion has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and displaced nearly a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people in just the last week.
United Nations agencies say 550,000 people, nearly a quarter of Gaza’s people, have been newly displaced in the last week, as Israeli forces have intensified their attacks on Rafah and reinvaded districts of northern Gaza.
But support for the Palestinians also came from within Israel.
Social media footage showed 200 Jewish and Palestinian students standing together in solidarity at the annual demonstration outside Israel’s Tel Aviv University to show their opposition to the assault in Gaza and to commemorate Nakba Day.
Israeli police allowed the event to take place but banned Palestinian flags.
The United States based Jewish Voice for Peace said: “As anti-zionist Jews, our solidarity with Palestinians is unshakeable.
“Today and every day until Palestine is free.”
Campaign organisation Progressive International said it stands “with all those who, through decades of violence and dispossession, have taken the path of resistance, revealing time and again the fragility of their oppressor.”
The International People’s Assembly said in a post to the X social media platform: “The strength and resilience of the Palestinian people for the liberation of their land, the return of all displaced people, and for a free Palestine inspire all the popular forces and freedom activists across the world.”
Scores of tech workers in Berlin staged a picket at Amazon Web Services’ Summit to protest against the firm’s Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion (£95 million) contract with the Israeli military.
But in Gaza Umm Shadi Sheikh Khalil, who was displaced from Gaza City and now lives in a tent in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, said: “We lived through the Nakba not just once, but several times.”
Israel rejects what the Palestinians say is their right of return.
