The Nakba from a Palestinian perspective

By Yihya Sirhan

MAY 21, 2024LABOUR HUB EDITORS

Many of my generation were born in refugee camps scattered over the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

 When I was a child, there was no electricity, TV or central heating: many families including mine relied on an open fire, lit in an old metal container to keep warm during the winter days. I can still remember the smoky smell, the warmth that was created by my brothers and sisters huddled around the lit metal container under the corrugated tin roof as we asked our parents to tell us a tale or a story during the winter cold months.

My parents relate to their memories often from their experience of the Nakba. Mum will always remind my dad about the orange orchards that my grandparents inherited from their parents and how they joyfully played and climbed the trees, while my dad will add how the smell from the blooming flowers of the citrus trees will never fade away. Occasionally my grandmother will explain that “oranges do not taste the same” – incidentally Jaffa oranges are named after the city of Yaffa on the coast of Palestine.

As far as I remember, the explanation of the Nakba, which is the Arabic name for Catastrophe, has been told in exactly the same way by all parents and grandparents – Zionist gangsters in 1948 causing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, mass killing, rape, dispossession of the land and forced violent displacement alongside the destruction of our society, culture and identity. The term is also used to describe the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.  As a whole, it covers the shattering of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

My parents who were in their teens at the time of the Nakba will take a deep breath followed by a short, silent look at the distance, remembering and visualising the struggle of their journey from the suburbs of the towns of Lydd and Ramleh to the mountains and valleys of Jericho. Both will agree and add that approximately half of Palestine’s population, or around 750,000 people, who lived in what is now called the 1948 borders, were expelled from their homes or made to flee by Zionist paramilitaries through various violent means, depopulating 500 towns and villages with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Zionist Jews and given new Hebrew names.  78% of the total land area of Palestine was controlled by Israel and at least 15,000 Palestinian Arabs had been killed by May 1948. This occurred in the wake of and the establishment of the State of Israel.  

The Palestinians view the Nakba as a collective trauma that denied their national identity and political aspirations, whereas the Israelis view the same events in terms of the war of independence that established their aspirations for statehood and sovereignty. To this end, the Palestinians observe 15th May as Nakba Day.

My parents were part of 80% of the Palestinian population who were expelled or fled from their homes and became refugees from over 530 villages and towns which were destroyed or depopulated such as Dir Yassen, Al Mansoura and Al Manshiyeh . Overnight, 1,300 Palestinians were killed in horrific massacres and their homes were wiped out from the map. Dozens of rapes of Palestinian young girls by regular and irregular Zionist gangsters are still surfacing in recent days on social media. Zionists used psychological warfare tactics to frighten Palestinians – killing pregnant women and beheading children before their parents and families, kidnapping, whispering campaigns, radio broadcasts, and loudspeaker vans to scare and drive fear into the Palestinians to force them clear the land, leaving their homes and belongings behind.

From November 1947 to today, many who witnessed the Nakba have departed us, leaving generations behind them armed with true facts, witnesses statements and visible scars, only for those generations to witness more Nakbas in 1967, 1973, 1983, 1987-1991, 2000–2005 and 2005–today – the continuous Gaza genocide. 

When will the genocide stop?

Yihya Sirhan is a Palestinian living in northwest London.

Image: London demonstration commemorating the Nakba, May 18th, c/o Labour Hub.