What happened in Palestine in 1948?
Each year on May 15, Palestinians around the world mark Nakba, or disaster, referring to the ethnic cleaning of Palestine in 1948.
Having obtained the support of the British government for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, on May 14, 1948, from the expiration of the British mandate, the Zionist forces declared the establishment of the State of Israel, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war.
The Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and their land and captured 78% of historic Palestine. The remaining 22% was divided into the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
The fighting continued until January 1949, when an armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria was forged. The 1949 armistice line is also known as the green line and is the generally recognized border between Israel and the West Bank. The green line is also called the borders (pre-) 1967, before Israel occupied the rest of Palestine during the 1967 war.
The Israeli military occupation of Palestine remains at the heart of this conflict of several decades which continues to shape each part of the life of the Palestinians.
Map the Palestinian villages that Israel has destroyed
Between 1947 and 1949, the Zionist military forces attacked the big Palestinian cities and destroyed some 530 villages. About 15,000 Palestinians were killed in a series of mass atrocities, including dozens of massacres.
On April 9, 1948, the Zionist forces committed one of the most infamous massacres of the war in the village of Deir Yassin on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. More than 110 men, women and children were killed by members of the Irgun pre-Israeli state and Zionist paramilitary organizations of the Gang Stern.
Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta has documented detailed recordings of what happened to these 530 villages in his book, The Atlas in Palestine.
Where are Palestinian refugees today?
Some six million registered Palestinian refugees live in at least 58 camps located in the countries of Palestine and neighboring countries.
The biggest camps of each are Baqa’a in Jordan, Jabalia in Gaza, Jenin in occupied West Bank, Yarmouk in Syria and Ein El-Hilweh in Lebanon.
More than 70% of Gaza residents are refugees.
According to international law, refugees have the right to return home and the goods they were moved. Many Palestinians always hope to return to Palestine.
The fate of Palestinian refugees is the longest problem of unresolved refugees in the world.