Thousands of Arabs in northern Israel mark Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of 1948
In annual ‘Nakba’ event near Haifa, participants commemorate hundreds of thousands who fled or were expelled from their homes during Israel’s War of Independence
Michael Bachner is a news editor at The Times of Israel
Thousands of Israeli Arabs gathered on Thursday for a march marking the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) for Palestinians caused by the Jewish state’s creation, which is held annually on Israel’s Independence Day.
Commemorating Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the War of Independence in 1948-9, participants waved Palestinian flags and pictures of prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as banners demanding the “right of return” for the tens of thousands of refugees and their millions of descendants.
They shouted slogans such as “these are our lands — we will continue our struggle at any cost” and “we will sacrifice our life for Palestine.”
“It isn’t Independence Day, it is Nakba Day,” one participant, Rania, was quoted as saying. “The state caused an injustice to many families who were expelled from their villages. We came here to make our voice heard — these are our families’ lands.”
The march was held near the Western Galilee city of Atlit in northern Israel, where an Arab village existed before the war.
אלפים מתכנסים סמוך לעתלית ל״תהלוכת השיבה״, בקריאה לאפשר לפליטים הפלסטינים שנעקרו מבתיהם ב-48' לשוב אליהם. את האירוע מארגנות העמותה להגנה על זכויות העקורים וועדת המעקב של ערביי ישראל. ביישובי חוף הכרמל שסביב מקום ההתכנסות ניסו למנוע את קיום האירוע, אך המאמצים כשלו @nitzanglusman pic.twitter.com/NPAWDi2h8J
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“This is the day in which Palestinians unite in memory and grief over families who were crushed and brothers who were scattered all over the place,” said MK Ahmad Tibi, the head of the Arab Joint List parliamentary faction, during the march.
“What happened then was a catastrophe — a humanitarian and national disaster by any measure,” Tibi said.
“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens until today live near the communities from which they were uprooted. What is more natural, humanitarian, and just than returning them to their homes in their abandoned communities, and returning their stolen property to them?” he added.
The “March of Return” has been held annually since 1998 at various Arab villages destroyed or abandoned in the war. Palestinians claim a right to return to homes or sites their forebears fled or were forced out of in 1948, and have made the demand a prerequisite for any peace agreement.
Israeli governments have rejected the notion of a mass “right of return” for Palestinians into the borders of the state of Israel, arguing that an influx of millions Palestinians would spell the end of the Jewish nation-state. Israel has called for Palestinian refugees to be absorbed into a future Palestinian state, just as Israel took in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Arab nations in the Middle East and North Africa.
Of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who left or were forced out of Israel when the country was established, a figure estimated in the low tens of thousands are still believed to be alive. But their descendants, considered refugees under the unique designation afforded by the UN to Palestinians, number in the millions.
At the Gaza border on successive Fridays in recent weeks, Gazans have been holding mass demonstrations, termed “March of Return,” which Gaza’s Hamas terrorist rulers say ultimately aim to see the removal of the border and the liberation of Palestine.
ToI staff and Sue Surkes contributed to this report.
