Nakba

Based on Wikipedia: Nakba

In May 1948, as the last British soldiers sailed away from the ports of Palestine, roughly 300,000 Palestinians had already lost their homes. Within a year, that number would climb to 750,000. They carried house keys in their pockets, expecting to return in weeks. Seventy-seven years later, those keys have become one of the most potent symbols of a people's identity—passed down through generations who have never seen the doors they were meant to open.

This is the Nakba.

What the Word Means

Nakba is Arabic for "catastrophe." It describes not a single event but an ongoing process: the violent displacement of Palestinian Arabs from their land, the destruction of their villages, the scattering of their communities, and the systematic denial of their return. The word encompasses everything from the massacres of 1948 to the blockade of Gaza today.

For Palestinians, the Nakba is the defining trauma of their national existence. For Israelis, these same events constitute the War of Independence—the birth of their state. Two peoples, looking at the same historical moment, see entirely different things. This isn't unusual in history. What makes the Nakba distinctive is how thoroughly documented it is, how fiercely contested its meaning remains, and how directly it shapes the politics of the present.

The Numbers Tell a Story

Before we go further, consider the scale.

Over 500 Arab towns and villages were depopulated. Eleven cities. More than 750,000 people—roughly 80 percent of the Arab population in what became Israel—either fled or were forced from their homes. Dozens of documented massacres. Entire communities erased from the map, their buildings demolished, their names replaced with Hebrew alternatives.

These aren't contested figures. Israeli, Palestinian, and international historians largely agree on them. What they disagree about is why it happened, whether it was justified, and what obligations, if any, it creates.

How Did We Get Here?

The roots of the Nakba stretch back to the late nineteenth century, when Jewish communities in Europe, facing persistent persecution, began developing Zionism—a movement to establish a Jewish homeland. Many Zionists looked to Palestine, the ancient land of Israel, as the natural location for this state. The problem, of course, was that Palestine wasn't empty.

When the British government issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, promising to support "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, the region's population was approximately 750,000 people. About 94 percent were Arab. The remaining 6 percent were Jewish.

The Declaration's careful language is revealing. It referenced the Arabs only as "existing non-Jewish communities"—defining a 94 percent majority by what they were not.

After World War I, Britain took control of Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. Jewish immigration increased, particularly as persecution intensified in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. By the time Britain decided to wash its hands of the problem after World War II, Jews comprised roughly one-third of Palestine's population.

The Partition Plan

In 1947, Britain handed the question to the newly formed United Nations. A special committee examined the situation and recommended partition: one state for Jews, one for Arabs, with Jerusalem under international administration.

The arithmetic of the proposal tells you much about how it was received.

Arabs made up about two-thirds of the population and owned roughly 90 percent of the land. The partition plan gave them 45 percent of the territory. Jews, comprising between a quarter and a third of the population and owning about 7 percent of the land, received 55 percent of the territory.

Jewish leaders accepted the plan—publicly. Privately, figures like David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first prime minister, viewed it as a tactical stepping stone. The borders could be expanded later.

Arab leaders rejected it entirely. They saw the partition as a violation of basic principles of self-determination. Why should a two-thirds majority be forced to surrender any of their land? The Arab Higher Committee announced it would take "all necessary measures" to prevent the plan's implementation.

Meanwhile, in secret negotiations that the public knew nothing about, Israel and Jordan—with British approval—agreed to divide the land allocated for the Palestinian state between themselves. The Palestinians would get nothing.

The Violence Begins

Small-scale clashes started the day after the United Nations vote in November 1947. They escalated steadily.

Palestinians began leaving almost immediately, expecting to return once things calmed down. This is important to understand: in the early stages, many departures were temporary evacuations, not permanent flight. Families locked their doors and took their keys.

But the violence intensified. Massacres occurred in December at Al-Khisas and Balad al-Shaykh. By March 1948, between 70,000 and 100,000 Palestinians—mostly middle- and upper-class urbanites—had fled or been expelled.

Then came Plan Dalet.

Plan Dalet

In April 1948, Israeli forces launched a systematic military offensive. Its purpose was to capture territory and empty it of its Arab population. This wasn't a defensive operation. It was a deliberate campaign to change the demographic composition of the land.

Over 200 villages were destroyed in the following weeks. Major cities were depopulated: Tiberias on April 18, Haifa on April 23, Acre in early May, Safed on May 10, Jaffa on May 13. The Palestinian neighborhoods of West Jerusalem were cleared on April 24.

One incident from this period became particularly infamous. On April 9, at the village of Deir Yassin, Jewish paramilitary forces killed over 100 Palestinian civilians. News of the massacre spread rapidly, and it became a powerful tool of psychological warfare. Other villages surrendered or fled rather than face a similar fate.

Israeli forces employed other psychological tactics: targeted violence designed to terrorize, loudspeaker vans broadcasting warnings, whispering campaigns, radio broadcasts. They also used biological warfare, poisoning the water supplies of certain towns. In May, one such operation caused a typhoid epidemic in Acre.

By the time Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, Palestinian society had effectively collapsed. Over 300,000 people had already lost their homes.

The Arab States Enter

The next day, armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon crossed into Palestine.

This is often portrayed as the moment when Arab states tried to "push the Jews into the sea." The reality was messier. The Arab armies were weak, poorly coordinated, and pursuing their own conflicting agendas. King Abdullah of Jordan, in particular, had already agreed with Israel to partition Palestinian land between themselves. He had no interest in creating an independent Palestinian state.

None of the Arab states wanted to see a Palestinian nation led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, whose collaboration with Nazi Germany had discredited him internationally. They entered the war partly under pressure from their own populations, outraged by reports of what was happening to Palestinians, and partly to grab territory for themselves.

The fighting continued through the summer and into the autumn. During brief truces, Israel established policies to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning. A Transfer Committee coordinated these efforts: destroying villages so there would be nothing to return to, settling Jewish immigrants in Arab houses, confiscating land, spreading propaganda.

Palestinians who tried to go home—to harvest their crops, to retrieve belongings, to simply exist in the place they had lived—were labeled "infiltrators" and killed or expelled.

The Summer of Expulsions

Some of the largest forced removals occurred during ten days of renewed fighting in July 1948. Over 50,000 Palestinians were expelled from the towns of Lydda and Ramle, forced to march eastward in the summer heat. Many died on the road.

Massacres continued through the autumn. At al-Dawayima on October 29, Israeli soldiers killed an estimated 80 to 200 villagers. At Safsaf the same day, roughly 50 to 70 men were executed after the village surrendered.

In October, Israel formalized military rule over the Palestinians who remained within its borders. This system would control nearly every aspect of their lives for the next eighteen years: curfews, travel restrictions, employment limitations, arbitrary detention. It was designed partly to find and remove "infiltrators" trying to return to their villages.

How It Ended—and Didn't

Most fighting concluded by early 1949. Armistice agreements were signed between February and July.

Israel now controlled 78 percent of historic Palestine—far more than the 55 percent allocated to it by the UN partition plan. It had seized roughly half the land meant for a Palestinian state. The rest was divided between Jordan, which took the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt, which held the Gaza Strip.

Jerusalem, which was supposed to be an international city, was split down the middle.

About 156,000 Palestinians remained inside Israel, now a minority in a Jewish state, living under military rule. The roughly 750,000 refugees—the ones who had locked their doors and taken their keys—found themselves in camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

In December 1948, the United Nations passed Resolution 194, declaring that Palestinian refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date." Those choosing not to return should be compensated for their property.

It has never been implemented. Israel has never permitted large-scale return. The keys remain unused.

The Nakba Continues

Palestinians do not speak of the Nakba as history. They speak of it as ongoing.

After the 1949 armistices, more villages were destroyed and more settlements built in their place. Palestinian place names were erased from maps. The word "Palestine" itself was removed from official Israeli materials.

In 1953, Israeli forces killed 69 Palestinians in the village of Qibya. In 1956, on the first day of the Suez Crisis, 49 Palestinian citizens of Israel were shot at Kafr Qasim for violating a curfew they hadn't been told about.

Palestinians inside Israel remained under martial law until 1966.

Then came 1967.

The Naksa

In June 1967, Israel fought and won a six-day war against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In the process, it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights.

Hundreds of thousands more Palestinians were displaced. Many were refugees for the second time—people who had fled to the West Bank or Gaza in 1948 and now fled again, mostly to Jordan. This second displacement is called the Naksa, which means "setback."

Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza ever since. (It withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but has maintained a blockade that controls what enters and leaves.)

Symbols of Memory

Palestinians commemorate the Nakba every year on May 15—the day after Israel celebrates its Independence Day. The juxtaposition is deliberate.

Several symbols have become central to Palestinian identity. The keys to lost homes are perhaps the most visceral: physical objects connecting generations to places they have never seen. The keffiyeh, a black-and-white checkered scarf, became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. And then there is Handala.

Handala is a cartoon character created by the Palestinian artist Naji al-Ali in 1969. He appears as a ten-year-old boy, always seen from behind, his hands clasped behind his back. He is a witness—watching events unfold, refusing to participate in them until justice is done. Al-Ali said Handala would remain ten years old until Palestinians could return to their homeland. The artist was assassinated in London in 1987. Handala still appears on walls, posters, and jewelry throughout the Palestinian diaspora.

The Politics of Memory

For decades, Israel's official narrative held that Palestinians had largely left voluntarily, encouraged by Arab radio broadcasts to evacuate temporarily so Arab armies could sweep through. This story has been systematically dismantled by historians, including Israeli scholars known as the "New Historians" who gained access to declassified archives beginning in the 1980s.

The documentary record shows a deliberate, coordinated campaign of expulsion. It shows massacres, psychological terror, and biological warfare. It shows policies explicitly designed to prevent return.

This hasn't changed official Israeli positions. In 2011, Israel passed the Nakba Law, which denies government funding to any institution that commemorates the Nakba as a day of mourning. Acknowledging the catastrophe remains politically dangerous in Israeli society.

The Present Tense

Today, there are approximately 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants. They live in 58 recognized refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. Many have lived in these camps for three or four generations.

The keys are still passed down. The villages, mostly, are gone.

Palestinians watch current events through the lens of the Nakba. When the 2023 Gaza war began—killing more Palestinians than any conflict since 1948—many saw it as a continuation of the same process. Their fears sharpened when Israel's Agriculture Minister publicly spoke of a "Gaza Nakba 2023." The prime minister distanced himself from the comment, but the fear remained.

This is what it means for history to be unfinished. The Nakba is not a closed chapter that Palestinians refuse to move past. It is an ongoing condition—a displacement that was never resolved, a return that was never permitted, a catastrophe that continues in the present tense.

Seventy-seven years after families locked their doors and took their keys, the question of return remains unanswered. The keys remain in drawers and on necklaces, waiting for doors that in most cases no longer exist, to homes that have been demolished and rebuilt and given different names.

The catastrophe continues.