What Is Al-Nakba?
Nakba" means "catastrophe" in Arabic("al-nakba" means "the catastrophe").ThroughouttheArab world, the word is used to refer to the devastation of Palestinian society and the dispossession of the Palestinian people resulting from eethnic cleansing conducted by Zionist forces during 1947-48

What Is Nakba Day?

The most important date on the Palestinian calendar, Nakba Day is observed throughout the world on May 15. Al-Nakba is the day set aside annually to commemorate the tragic events of 1948 when the "State of Israel", which took its land from Palestine, was established.

Nakba Day is also an occasion to celebrate the continued vitality of Palestinian culture in the face of continuing hardships, and to reaffirm Palestinian aspirations for peace and self-determination.


What Happened During Al-Nakba?

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly proposed partitioning The British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab. The Jewish community accepted the UN partition plan, while the Arab community in Palestine, supported by the Arab League, rejected the UN proposal and vowed to oppose it by armed struggle. In the ensuing war, in which the Palestinian Arabs failed to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state according to the partition plan, an estimated 700,000 Palestinian refugees, and the destruction and abandonment of up to 418 Palestinian villages are called al-Nakba ("The Catastrophe") by Palestinians. Prior to its adoption by the Palestinian nationalist movement, the term more commonly referred to the 1920 Battle of Maysalun, in which the French army invaded Syria and deposed Arab Revolt leader King Faisal I

Israel declared its independence from the United Kingdom on the evening of May 14, 1948. That same night five of the seven countries of the Arab League launched a military operation against Israel; this marks the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Israel Defense Forces defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq and seized just over fifty per cent of the territory allocated for an Arab state in the partition. After the end of the war, the vast majority of Palestinian Arab refugees outside the 1949 armistice lines were barred by the Israelis from returning to their homes, many of which had been destroyed and seized, or from reclaiming their property.
What Is the Significance of Al-Nakba?

The Nakba destroyed a thriving and diverse Palestinian society and scattered the Palestinian people into diaspora. The Nakba is also the source of the still-unresolved Palestinian refugee problem. Today, over 4 million Palestinian refugees are scattered throughout the world. Many of them live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip in poverty-stricken refugee camps.

Today
While Nakba Day is commemorated on May 15 in keeping with the Gregorian calendar instead of the Islamic calendar, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters around the world coordinate some Nakba Day events to coincide with the Israeli Independence Day celebrations. Because of the differences between the Jewish and the Gregorian calendars, Independence Day and the official May 15 date for Nakba Day usually only coincides every 19 years. In Israel, there are Nakba day protests by Arab citizens which take place according to the Hebrew date, on the same day when Israeli Jews celebrate Israel's independence day.

The event is often marked by speeches and rallies in the West Bank, Gaza and in Arab states. In 2006, Israeli Arab member of the Knesset Dr. Azmi Bishara told the Israeli newspaper Maariv: "Independence Day is your holiday, not ours. We mark this as the day of our Nakba, the tragedy that befell the Palestinian nation in 1948".

The day was inaugurated in 1998 by Yasser Arafat, when over one million people participated in marches and other events. Nakba Day has been marked each year by protests which at times develop to clashes between Palestinians and the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in 2003 and 2004, by demonstrations in London and New York City.