Yesterday was Nakba Day, a day that commemorates the destruction of Palestine’s homeland and the mass displacement of 750,000 people in 1948.
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It was moving to March in solidarity with hundreds of Palestinians from the Yasser Arafat mausoleum to Manarah Square.
Children carried body bags splattered with red paint symbolizing the ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza. Others held keys representing the keys to the homes their families were forced to leave as a result of the creation of the ethno-state of Israel. People also held banners stating the names of the villages they were displaced from. At noon we stood in silence for 76 seconds to honor the 76 years since the original Nakba.
In the evening, occupation forces stormed Ramallah and most West Bank cities. The IOF army raided money exchange shops all over the West Bank including Nablus, Tulkarm, Jericho, Qalqilya, Tubas, Bethlehem, and Al-Bireh.
They surrounded the perimeter of the headquarters of the Popular Organizations and the Journalists Syndicate in the Al-Balou neighborhood in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, near the house of the President of the Palestinian Authority. Police and army flooded the streets and friends made plans to check in in the morning to verify we all made it through the night.
Three unarmed boys in Tulkarem were murdered by the IOF: Ayman Ahmed Mubarak (26 years old), Hossam Imad Dabas (22 years old), and Muhammad Youssef Nasrallah (27 years old). Occupation forces also bombed an exchange shop in downtown Tulkarem.
In Tubas, the IOF open fired at ambulances who were tending to those they wounded with tear gas and live bullets.
The word “Nakba” is the Arabic word for “catastrophe.” Kaleem Hawa, Palestinian Youth Movement, published a powerful piece yesterday about how the 1948 Nakba should not be seen as one event but rather an ongoing process that continues to the present day. She wrote, “Zionism is the catastrophe… this entity has no borders because it claims the entire Arab world.”
You can read the rest of her article here.
