Nakba: The Catastrophe That Continues to Shape Palestine

The Nakba: A Concise History of Displacement and Loss On May 15, 1948, the State of Israel declared independence, marking the beginning of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or "catastrophe." This event led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and lands. The Al Jazeera English video provides a stark reminder of this historical event, utilizing archival footage to illustrate the violence and displacement. The UN's 1947 partition plan, intended to divide Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, is shown to have allocated a disproportionate amount of land to the Jewish population, who constituted only one-third of the overall population at the time. This imbalance set the stage for conflict. Following the plan's passage, Zionist forces launched attacks on Palestinian towns and villages, seizing 774 settlements and destroying 530. "They seized 774 settlements and wiped out 530, forcing more than 250,000 Palestinians off of their land," the video narrates. This resulted in the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians. Many Palestinians fled to refugee camps throughout Palestine and neighboring countries, clinging to the keys to their homes as a symbol of their hope for return. These keys, as seen in the video, remain a powerful symbol of their enduring claim to their ancestral lands. The video's use of historical maps and images effectively visualizes the scale of the displacement and the loss of Palestinian territory.