Millions of Palestinians mark 78 years since the Nakba
Key takeaways
- Nakba commemorations serve as remembrance and a call for justice, self-determination and the right to return.
- The Nakba refers to the systematic dispossession and displacement of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949, when Zionist paramilitary groups captured towns and villages in what became the state of Israel.
- Hundreds of thousands of those expelled and their descendants now live in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and across the region, including Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Nakba commemorations serve as remembrance and a call for justice, self-determination and the right to return.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Displaced Palestinian Mustafa Al-Jazzar, 83, who fled his hometown during the 1948 Nakba, sits with his family and grandchildren at a camp for displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. [Hasseb Al Wazeer/Reuters]By Al Jazeera Staff, AP and Reuters Published On 15 May 202615 May 2026Millions of Palestinians are marking the 78th anniversary of the Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – a term that refers to the mass expulsion and flight of some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel.
Friday’s anniversary is the third Nakba commemoration since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began, and comes as more than two million people in the besieged enclave remain displaced and confined to a fraction of their territory.