Someone reached out to me yesterday about my post concerned that I had spelled “Nakba” wrong. In case anyone else is confused, I thought I’d clarify that the Nakba and Naksa are actually different things.
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Naksa in Arabic means “the setback” and refers to the displacement of 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians after Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the Six-Day War in 1967. It is estimated over 400 towns were destroyed by the IOF. About 245,000 fled to Jordan, 11,000 went to Egypt, and 116,000 Palestinians and Syrians escaped the Golan Heights area and moved further into Syria. Until this war, at least half of Palestinians lived in the boundaries of what was at the time termed Mandatory Palestine but afterwards the majority became refugees. Displacing Palestinians has been a constant and effective tactic of the Zionist movement to remove Palestinians from their homeland.
The Nakba, or “the catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the general ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Many use the term to refer specifically to the 1948 event when 750,000 people were violently expelled from their homes to establish Israel. In this year there were dozens of massacres targeting Palestinians and over 500 Arab towns and cities were destroyed and depopulated. The emptied places that were left standing were given Hebrew names and refilled with only those of Jewish descent.
In truth, however, the Nakba is ongoing. Palestinians are still persecuted and displaced by the Zionist regime. They still have their land and property stolen. They still have their culture suppressed and are denied basic human rights. They are still murdered daily by Israeli forces.