Nakba 77 1948-2025: The Longest Displacement in Contemporary History May 15, 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every year on May 15, Palestinians worldwide commemorate the 1948 catastrophe (Nakba) marked by ethnic cleansing and mass forced displacement of their people. Under the British Mandate and with the complicity of colonial powers, over 800,000 Palestinians—out of a population of 1.4 million—were forcibly displaced from nearly 1,300 towns and villages to the West Bank, Gaza, neighboring Arab countries, and beyond. The occupation forces seized 774 localities, destroyed 531 of them, and committed more than 70 massacres, resulting in the deaths of approximately 15,000 Palestinians. This marked the beginning of a new phase of Palestinian suffering—defined by the denial of their right to return and the consolidation of a colonial regime sustained by international support.

The Nakba was not merely a historical event; it is an ongoing reality that persists today through policies of displacement, settlement, and racial discrimination, all aimed at uprooting Palestinians from their land and erasing their national identity.

 

Forced displacement in West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem

Seventy-seven years after the Nakba, forced displacement is no longer just a chapter in history—it is a recurring reality that continues to thrust the Palestinian tragedy into the present. The Israeli assault on Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, marked a pivotal moment in the ongoing colonial strategy of systematically depopulating the land and denying Palestinians their right of return.

From the earliest days of the war, Israeli political and military leaders made explicit statements signaling their intent to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and turn mass displacement into a long-term policy. This agenda was clearly reflected in calls by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to revive settlements in Gaza—positioning it as a first step toward sweeping demographic engineering. (1)

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented that Israeli forces issued 'mandatory evacuation' orders affecting large areas of the Gaza Strip, without providing safe alternatives or legal guarantees. The OHCHR determined that these orders do not meet the standards of international humanitarian law—falling short in terms of transportation conditions, civilian protection, and access to essential needs such as shelter, food, and medical care. The Office further reported that civilians were repeatedly forced to relocate within Gaza under constant and life-threatening conditions for themselves and their families. (2)

In the West Bank, a parallel policy of forced displacement is being systematically implemented, particularly in Area C, which remains under full Israeli control. Israeli authorities continue to demolish Palestinian homes and civilian structures, seize land, and deny building permits. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 1,000 Palestinian structures were demolished across 2023 and 2024, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of families—most notably in the northern Jordan Valley and Masafer Yatta—as part of ongoing efforts to transform these areas into closed military zones. (3)

In East Jerusalem, a systematic campaign of evictions is underway in several neighborhoods, including Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Issawiya, and Beit Safafa. Israeli authorities rely on manipulative legal mechanisms and settler organizations that claim ownership of Palestinian properties in an effort to replace the native population with settlers. International human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have affirmed that these policies constitute a pattern of forced displacement prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention and may amount to a war crime—particularly given the lack of effective legal remedies available to Palestinians in Israeli courts. (4)

Settlement expansion

In 2024, settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, reached unprecedented levels—both in terms of constructing new settlements and expanding existing ones. This expansion has been accompanied by a systematic escalation in the demolition of Palestinian homes under the pretext of lacking building permits—permits that Israeli authorities routinely deny. These actions aim to depopulate Palestinian areas and replace the indigenous residents with Israeli settlers.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has stated that Israel’s settlement policy, along with its associated practices of de facto annexation and discriminatory legislation, represents a flagrant violation of international law, as confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its 2004 advisory opinion on the separation wall. Turk further asserted that Israel’s transfer of its civilian population into the occupied territories constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law. He called for an immediate and complete halt to all settlement activities, the evacuation of settlers, and the accountability of those responsible for violations, whether settlers or Israeli occupation forces. (5)

The High Commissioner further emphasized that Israel must provide compensation for the damages resulting from decades of illegal settlement activities. He stressed that these policies not only violate Palestinians' right to self-determination but also perpetuate a system of systemic racial discrimination.

In a statement issued on May 9, 2025, the Special Committee on the Israeli Practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories expressed "grave concern over the accelerating pace of land confiscation and the entrenchment of a colonial system aimed at achieving complete control over the land and its people." The committee stated that the ongoing situation "could constitute a new Nakba," warning that current policies involve systematic patterns of arbitrary killing, forced disappearances, and ethnic cleansing, all of which reinforce apartheid practices on the ground. (6)

The Right of Return Amid Current Challenges

Since the Nakba of 1948, the right of return has been central to the Palestinian refugee issue, representing one of the oldest and most unresolved political and humanitarian crises in modern history. In the wake of military operations led by Zionist forces, hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed, and their inhabitants were forcibly displaced to neighboring areas, both within Palestine and abroad. Despite the efforts to prevent their return, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 (III) on December 11, 1948, which, in its eleventh paragraph, affirmed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and called for compensation for those who chose not to return. (7)

Over the following decades, this right has been reaffirmed in numerous international resolutions and binding human rights instruments, including:

  • The Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (August 12, 1949), which, in Article 49, prohibits "forcible transfer, whether individual or mass, of protected persons," and forbids their deportation from occupied territories "for any reason." Notably, Israel is a signatory to the Convention. (8)
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which enshrines in Article 13 "the right of every individual to leave any country, including his own, and to return to it," and Article 17, which prohibits "arbitrary deprivation of property." (9)
  • The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which Israel ratified on October 3, 1991, stipulates in Article 12, paragraph 4, that "no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country." (10)

 

Despite this clear legal framework, which affirms the binding nature of the right of return, Israel persists in denying this right—not only by obstructing its implementation in practice but also by continuing policies of forced displacement, land confiscation, and settlement expansion, thus deepening the entrenched colonial reality of expulsion and replacement.

 

Conclusions

Field data and human rights reports confirm that the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory—particularly in the Gaza Strip since October 2023—constitutes the largest wave of forced displacement since the Nakba of 1948. Over 1.9 million Palestinians have been internally displaced within Gaza alone, in addition to thousands more uprooted in the West Bank as a result of ongoing policies of demolition and land confiscation.

Israel has systematically used siege and starvation as a method of warfare by obstructing the entry of humanitarian aid and imposing severe restrictions on food and medicine. This has resulted in documented famine conditions and the deaths of numerous civilians, particularly children and the elderly—constituting a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions and the prohibition against using starvation of civilians as a method of combat.

It has become increasingly evident that Israel employs an integrated system of legal, military, and administrative mechanisms to advance its displacement policies, particularly in Area "C” of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Israeli courts are systematically utilized to legitimize eviction claims brought by settler organizations against Palestinian residents, all within a legal framework that lacks genuine safeguards and fails to provide effective judicial protection for the affected population.

In addition, the large-scale destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure has been devastating. Estimates indicate that over 70% of homes and civilian facilities—including hospitals, schools, and water and sanitation networks—have been destroyed. This level of devastation signals a long-term humanitarian catastrophe that threatens the basic foundations of life in the Strip.

 

Recommendations

In the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, and in light of the ongoing crimes and violations against the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Association for Human Rights (Witness) calls for the following:

  1. Holding Israel accountable before international courts, particularly the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, for crimes committed, including mass killings, forced displacement, torture, and arbitrary detention.
  2. Urging the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly to take immediate action to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip, as it constitutes a war crime and a violation of international humanitarian law, and to ensure the immediate and unconditional access to humanitarian aid.
  3. Calling for a comprehensive halt to all settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including the dismantling of illegal settlements, halting home demolitions, and halting land confiscation.
  4. Pressuring for the implementation of United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian cause, especially those pertaining to the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original towns and villages, in accordance with Resolution 194, as an essential condition for achieving any just settlement.
  5. Urging host countries of Palestinian refugees, particularly Lebanon, to respect the civil, economic, and social rights of Palestinians, and emphasizing that the refusal of naturalization does not justify violations of these fundamental rights, which are guaranteed under international human rights law.

References

1.Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s calls to "return to Gaza” and resume settlement activity were reported by multiple sources, including The Times of Israel (2023).

2.OHCHR. (2023, December 13). Israel/OPT: UN experts deplore large-scale forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. United Nations Human Rights Office. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/12/israelopt-un-experts-deplore-large-scale-forced-displacement-palestinians

3.OCHA. (2024, January). West Bank demolitions and displacement | January–December 2023. United Nations OCHA OPT. https://www.ochaopt.org

4.Amnesty International. (2022, February). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/

Human Rights Watch. (2021, April). A threshold crossed: Israeli authorities and the crimes of apartheid and persecution. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

5.OHCHR. (2024, April 27). UN High Commissioner: Israel’s settlement policies constitute war crimes and must end. Statement by Volker Türk. https://www.ohchr.org

6.UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices. (2025, May 9). Statement on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.

7.UN General Assembly. (1948, December 11). Resolution 194 (III): Palestine — Progress report of the United Nations Mediator. https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/194(III)

8.UN General Assembly. (1948, December 11). Resolution 194 (III): Palestine — Progress report of the United Nations Mediator. https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/194(III)

9.United Nations General Assembly. (1948, December 10). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 13 and 17. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

10. United Nations, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12(4), adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights