YOUSEF ALHELOU: On May 15 each year, the Palestinian people mark Nakba Day, or what is known in
English as the Catastrophe of 1948.
It was in this year that Israel was established on Palestinian land, after the indigenous
population was forced to flee their ancestral towns and villages.
Palestinian organizations refer to the Nakba as an ongoing tragedy, not only because Israel
continues to dispossess Palestinians of their lands inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian
territories, but also because Israel continues to deny the refugees the right to return to
their homes.
Events ranging from rallies, popular conferences, to cultural and traditional exhibitions take
place across occupied Palestine and in the Diaspora, where Pro-Palestine supporters also
take part in the annual commemoration.
The Palestinian Nakba of 1948 saw the beginning of ethnic cleansing of Palestine and led to
the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians, many of whom were forced to flee to neighboring
countries after some 500 towns and villages were destroyed by Israeli occupation forces.
Today, Palestinian refugees and their descendants continue to fight for the right of return
as the legacy of Palestine is passed down to generation after generation.
JAMAL SALEM: We mark this day and educate our younger generation to stick to the right
of return and never relinquish our national rights.
When the occupiers occupied Palestine 65 years ago, they claimed that Palestine was a land
without a people for a people without a land, but our land was inhabited and we were forced
to leave our properties and we were dispossessed.
We are proud of our cultural heritage, which reflects our identity.
ALHELOU: The right of return is a right that is protected under international law, as was
confirmed by UN Resolution 194, yet has been denied for the Palestinian refugees for generations.
At the same time, anyone of Jewish descent from around the world can receive immediate
Israeli citizenship.
Descendants of refugees who live in the Diaspora mark the event.
The Real News Network talked to Samah Sabawi in Australia and asked her what Nakba means
to her.
SAMAH SABAWI: The plight of the Palestinian refugees began 65 years ago with the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine as Israel was trying to make way for the establishment of a Jewish
state with a Jewish majority for the Jewish people on indigenous inhabited Palestinian
land.
Now, unfortunately, the ethnic cleaning has not stopped and continues until this day under
the watchful eye of a complicit international community.
The international community has failed the Palestinian people.
And that is why it's very important for people of good conscience around the world to support
the Palestinian grassroots movement for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel,
so that we, as the people of the world, can start to hold Israel to account for its violations
of the Palestinian human rights and for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
ALHELOU: The Palestinian people are the indigenous people of the land, historically identified
under the British Mandate as Palestine, which is now called Israel.
Israelis claim that they have a connection that is largely based on old religious narratives.
ATEF UDWAN: The right of return is an essential right for every Palestinian deported his homeland
since 1948 up to this moment.
Such conferences and all activities that being, you know, held by Palestinians everywhere
is to assert the right of return.
ALHELOU: The total number of Palestinians in the world is estimated to be about 11 million.
About 5 million out of this number are Palestinian refugees, still live in UN-administered refugee
camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
About two thirds of Gaza's 1.7 million people are refugees who were forced to flee their
original villages in historic Palestine.
A big number are still living in eight refugee camps across the Gaza Strip, receiving humanitarian
aid assistance, health and education services provided by the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA).
ADNAN ABU HASNA: We are servicing nearly 5 million registered refugees in Syria, Lebanon,
Gaza, and West Bank.
It is a mandate of the General Assembly that was given to UNRWA in 1949.
We will continue servicing the refugees until finding a just and durable solution for their
cause.
ALHELOU: Sixty-five years on, Palestinian refugees make up the world's largest refugee
population and longest unresolved refugee crisis.
Palestinian refugees consider the key the symbol of return, as they still dream of an
eventual return to their homes in their original homeland, a dream they hope one day will become
a reality.
As Palestinian refugees mark Nakba day, they assert their right of return, emphasizing
that they will never relinquish what they call a sacred right.
Yousef Alhelou for The Real News, Gaza.