What Is the Palestinian Nakba and Why It’s Still Happening Today
Today marks 77 years since the Nakba, when Zionist militias expelled 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel. But the Nakba isn’t just history. It’s happening again, right now.
From Mondoweiss:
Today marks 77 years since the Nakba, when Zionist militias expelled 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel.
But the Nakba isn’t just history.
It’s happening again, right now.
The word Nakba means “catastrophe” in Arabic. It refers to the 1947–49 mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist militias and the Israeli army. 437 cities and villages were depopulated. Entire communities were wiped off the map.
The goal was clear: to establish a Jewish-majority state on land where Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — were the vast majority.
Zionist leaders called it “transfer.” Today, we call it what it was: ethnic cleansing.
The violence began BEFORE the founding of Israel.
In December 1947, the Zionist assault on Tiberias began. By May 14, 1948 — the day Israel was declared — hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already been forced out.
By 1949:
- 750,000+ Palestinians expelled
- 400+ towns destroyed
- 70,000+ books looted
- 8 million+ refugees today
- Most still denied the right to return — a right protected under international law.
This year, the UN warns that “another Nakba” may be underway. But it already is.
Israel’s genocide on Gaza has killed over 55,000 people (estimates put this number much higher). 90% of Gaza’s population is internally displaced. Entire families have been wiped out. Children are dying of starvation. Cities and neighborhoods flattened.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israel is rapidly annexing land, torching villages, and pushing Palestinians off their land. Dozens of communities have already been emptied.
This is not just occupation. It’s the next phase of the Nakba.
The U.S. is not a bystander. It’s an active participant — arming Israel with over $14 billion in weapons, blocking ceasefires, and shielding it from accountability.
This is genocide with full Western backing.
The Nakba never ended. It evolved. From mass expulsion to apartheid, siege, and now genocide.
But Palestinians are still here. Still resisting. Still remembering.
From Writers Against the War on Gaza:
To the steadfast,
As we mark 77 years of Nakba, we remind the world that the Nakba is not the start of Palestinian history. Palestinians and Arabs across the region have resisted imperialism for over 100 years. From the Great Arab Revolution of 1936 to the war of the camps in Lebanon, to the tearing down of the border wall in 2023, the Palestinian people stubbornly insist on life and on remaining rooted in their land.
It is through this stubbornness that the path to liberation is born. Paved by the blood of our martyrs and guided by the light of our prisoners, this path is neither straight nor easy, but we follow it nevertheless. In the face of setbacks and unanswered questions, we march forward, because we know that this struggle will lead us to liberation.
Today, our struggle is at a crossroads. The Zionist state and its Western backers are waging a war of extermination against our people, from Gaza, to the West Bank, to the broader Arab region and the far diaspora. The scale of human loss in Gaza and the attack on our movement in the diaspora are realities that produce hopelessness and despair.
But if there was ever a moment to confront hopelessness and replace it with conviction, that moment is now.
This new issue of The New York War Crimes, which you can find at protests and in cities across America, launches today—the 77th anniversary of the Nakba. Produced in partnership between the Palestinian Youth Movement and Writers Against the War on Gaza, it includes texts that articulate the antagonistic contradiction between Palestinian liberation and Zionism, between imperialism and Arab sovereignty, demonstrating unequivocally that the two can never co-exist. This moment’s horrors reflect Zionism’s barbarity. They also reflect our will to resist, to remain, and to return. For as long as Zionism attempts to eradicate us, we know we have not been defeated.
Across eight pages are stories of displacement, imprisonment, and martyrdom, which testify to the promise of resistance and return. Through archival research, translated works, and new writing, the Nakba ‘77 issue is a vindication of our people’s resolve, of their unshakable refusal to compromise and capitulate.
Few Palestinian survivors of May 1948 are alive today. Yet the scale and distance of 77 years should not dissuade us. In the words of Nakba survivor Ahmed Qasim Ubayd, whose story is featured in this issue: “Everyone we’re talking about is dead now; we’re here talking about memories. It’s so that the generation that comes after us understands the value of the homeland.”
Let the memory of them renew our commitment to the struggle and the homeland. Let their sacrifices serve as that steadfast flame, lit by the first generation and passed on by each subsequent one, guiding us forward on the road to liberation and return.
[Download the full issue here]