ON THIS DAY, THE "NAKBA" STARTED.

Witness May 16, 2021

15 MAY 1948, ON THIS DAY, THE "NAKBA" STARTED.

Palestinian use the term "Nakba", or “The Catastrophe” in Arabic, to refer to the 1948 expulsions by Zionist gangs.

More than seven decades since their expulsion from historical Palestine in 1948, Palestinians continue to find new ways of pressing for their cherished right to return.

Seventy-one years ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their villages and towns in historical Palestine to neighboring countries as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Another part of Palestinians found themselves displaced to the Gaza Strip and West Bank amid rising attacks by Zionist gangs to pave for the way for the creation of the state of Israel.

On April 9, 1948, more than 250 Palestinians were killed by Zionist gangs when they carried out a deadly attack on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin.

Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.

The British occupation authorities had announced that they would be ending their mandate in Palestine on the eve of May 15, 1948. Eight hours earlier, David Ben-Gurion, who became Israel’s first prime minister, announced what the Zionist leaders called a declaration of independence in Tel Aviv.

The British Mandate ended at midnight, and on May 15, the Israeli state came into being.

Palestinians commemorated their national tragedy of losing a homeland in an unofficial way for decades, but in 1998, the former President of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, declared May 15 a national day of remembrance, on the 50th year since the Nakba.