The Nakba: 77 years of displacement, loss, and unfulfilled return
Palestinian women and children forced to leave their homes in Tantura, 1948. Photograph by Benno Rothenberg /Meitar Collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, CC BY 4.0 Attribution International License via Wikimedia Commons.
Sawsan Abubaker and Nesreen Zayyad
The Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, meaning “catastrophe”) refers to the forced displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, following the creation of the State of Israel. More than 530 villages were systematically depopulated, destroyed, or taken over.[i] Families fled their homes — many leaving behind fully furnished homes, believing they would return in days or weeks — but return never came.
The displacement was marked by violent massacres designed to instill terror. The Deir Yassin massacre (April 9, 1948) became one of the most infamous, where over 100 Palestinians, including women and children, were executed by Zionist forces. Mass killings like those at Tantura, Lydda, and Haifa led to widespread panic.
Cities like Yaffa, Lydda, and Haifa, once thriving centers of commerce and culture, were emptied of their native Palestinian populations. Villagers escaped in the night, leaving their dining tables still set, meals untouched, and homes intact. Some Jewish immigrants arriving at Haifa’s port witnessed these scenes and refused to settle in them, recognizing the tragedy.
The Haganah, Irgun, and Stern Gang militias spearheaded operations designed to ethnically cleanse Palestinian towns and villages. Salman Abu Sitta’s Register of Depopulated Localities meticulously records each destroyed village, mapping the disappearance of an entire society.[ii]
It is vital to understand that Palestine was not an “empty land.” Prior to 1948, Palestinians legally owned over 93% of the land in historic Palestine, according to British Mandate records and the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).[iii] The population was culturally vibrant, economically active, and politically organized.
Far from being a barren desert, Palestine had bustling cities like Jaffa, Acre, Jerusalem, and Gaza; hundreds of towns and villages; thousands of schools, mosques, churches, and libraries. Palestinian farmers cultivated citrus, olives, and wheat; others operated railways, factories, cinemas, and newspapers. The narrative that this was a land “without a people” has no basis in fact — it is a myth used to justify displacement.
Before the violence of 1948 erupted fully, Zionist leadership had already laid out a strategic plan to seize control of as much territory as possible. Known as Plan Dalet (Plan D), this blueprint was approved in March 1948 by the Haganah high command. It outlined a detailed military strategy to take over Palestinian towns and villages — whether they resisted or not — and included explicit directives to expel the Arab population.
According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, Plan Dalet marked the shift from sporadic fighting to a planned campaign of ethnic cleansing.[iv] It served as the operational backbone for attacks like those on Deir Yassin, Lydda, and Tantura. Fellow historian Benny Morris also confirms that the plan involved deliberate strategies of expulsion, although he disputes the terminology of “ethnic cleansing.” Regardless of terminology, the consequences were indisputable: empty villages, mass graves, and permanent exile.
The Nakba was not just a moment in history — it was the beginning of an exile that continues. Refugee camps still stand, keys to lost homes remain clutched in aging hands, and the dream of return refuses to fade.
After 1948, Palestinians were not just physically expelled — their homes, belongings, and historical archives were looted and confiscated. The newly established Israeli government enacted the Absentee Property Law, classifying everything left behind as “Abandoned Property.”
Looting extended beyond books — furniture, jewelry, artwork, family heirlooms, and business assets were taken. Palestinian homes were stripped of valuables, and banks froze Palestinian accounts. On June 12, 1948, the Israeli government ordered all banks to freeze the accounts of Palestinian customers, effectively erasing their financial security.[v]
Palestinian libraries were emptied, with 30,000 books seized and labeled “AP” (Abandoned Property). Gish Amit documents how Palestinian literature, manuscripts, and family archives were systematically collected, repurposed, and erased from historical memory.[vi]
The Nakba did not just displace people — it fragmented families, scattering them across borders. Some fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, while others sought refuge in Gaza and the West Bank. Many left without documentation, rushing to escape violence, and were never able to establish citizenship in host countries.
For 77 years, thousands of Palestinians have remained stateless, living in refugee camps under the belief that they would one day return. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA), 5.9 million Palestinian refugees live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank alone, many still holding onto keys to homes they were forced to leave in 1948.
The Naksa (Arabic: النكسة, meaning “setback”) refers to the displacement of more than 350,000 Palestinians following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Cities in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights were overtaken, resulting in yet another mass exodus. The villages of Imwas, Yalo, Bayt Nuba, Beit Awwa, and Al-Jiftlik were destroyed.[vii]
By December 1967, over 245,000 Palestinians had fled to Jordan, 11,000 from Gaza to Egypt, and 116,000 Palestinians and Syrians from the Golan Heights into Syria. Many of those displaced in 1967 were already refugees from 1948, now facing their second forced exile.[viii]
Gaza, now home to over 2.1 million Palestinians, holds one of the highest concentrations of refugees in the world — many descended from those expelled during the 1948 Nakba. Today’s devastation is not an isolated event, but a direct continuation of that original catastrophe. The Israeli military campaigns, siege, and systematic displacement policies reinforce a cycle of uprooting that has persisted for more than 77 years.
The current mass exodus from Rafah echoes the forced expulsions of 1948 and 1967. Entire families are once again fleeing with nothing, retracing the trauma etched into collective memory. The right of return, enshrined in UN Resolution 194 and reaffirmed through international legal norms, remains denied, rendering generations of Palestinians stateless within their homeland.
The Nakba was not just a moment in history — it was the beginning of an exile that continues. Refugee camps still stand, keys to lost homes remain clutched in aging hands, and the dream of return refuses to fade. The myth of “a land without a people” collapses under the weight of history, evidence, and memory.
To remember the Nakba is to resist erasure — to honor the voices silenced, the homes lost, and the hope that endures.
Sawsan Abubaker is a Palestinian Muslim American and a federally licensed tax strategist. A co-founder of Meet your Allies, a Chicago-based open space for dialogue between Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Arab, Pakistani, and other communities, as well as a devoted mother of three and proud grandmother of six, she finds joy in nurturing her family and strengthening her community. Through her work and storytelling, she strives to inspire understanding and unity.
Nesreen Zayyad, also a Palestinian Muslim American, is an educator, researcher, and cultural preservationist with over two decades of experience in education, nonprofit leadership, and museum research. She serves as an ESL instructor at Moraine Valley Community College. Nesreen is also the founder of a cultural preservation initiative that integrates traditional Palestinian Tatreez and vintage thobes into contemporary design, with the long-term goal of establishing a museum dedicated to Palestinian heritage.
The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Salman Abu Sitta. The Palestinian Nakba 1948: The register of depopulated localities in Palestine. London: Palestinian Return Centre, 2000. https://www.plands.org/en/books-reports/books/the-palestinian-nakba-1948/pdf/the-register-of-depopulated-localities-in-palestine.
[ii] Salman Abu Sitta. The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine. London: Palestinian Return Centre, 1998. See also Palestine Land Society. “Atlas of Palestine.” Accessed May 13, 2025. https://www.plands.org/en/maps/atlas-of-palestine
[iii] Galina Nikitina, The State of Israel: A Historical, Economic and Political Study. Progress Publishers, 1973.
[iv] Ilan Pappé. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006.
[v] Sreemati Mitter. “Pensioners, Orphans, and Widows versus Banks: Palestinian Financial History.” Journal of Palestine Studies 50, no. 3 (2021): 39–42. Accessed May 13, 2025. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0377919X.2021.1938482?casa_token=3_Gi8FVpnukAAAAA:8sx8HL9AZH98D8SHX3DJF-djuKoPf5OztIk0iKgoX-Im3CzbvxPEF7GwmXO0F-XzPDH6VpU_M7w
[vi] Gish Amit. “Ownerless Objects? The Story of the Books Palestinians Left Behind in 1948.” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 33 (Winter 2008): 7–20. Accessed May 13, 2025. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/77868
[vii] Umar al-Ghubari. “Turning Entire Palestinian Villages Invisible.” +972 Magazine, June 29, 2016. https://www.972mag.com/turning-entire-palestinian-villages-invisible/.
[viii] David McDowall. Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond. University of California Press, 1989, p. 84.
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