Palestinians held marches in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, of their mass dispossession during the creation of Israel in 1948.
More than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians.
In the West Bank, too, occupied since 1967, Israeli forces have displaced tens of thousands from refugee camps as part of a major military operation.
This year marks the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, during which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their lands after Israel declared itself an independent state in the territory.
In Ramallah city, Palestinian flags and black ones branded “return” flew at road intersections on Wednesday, while schoolchildren were bussed into the city centre to take part in the weeklong commemoration.
At one event, young boys wearing Palestinian kuffiyeh scarves waved flags and carried a giant replica key, a symbol of the lost homes in what is now Israel that families hope to return to.
No events were planned in Gaza, where more than 19 months of war and Israeli bombardment have left residents destitute and displaced.
Moamen al-Sherbini, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, told the AFP news agency that he felt history was repeating itself.
“Our lives here in Gaza have become one long Nakba, losing loved ones, our homes destroyed, our livelihoods gone.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during Israel’s war.
In early May, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded military offensive in Gaza, aimed at the “conquest” of the territory while displacing its people en masse, drawing international condemnation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working to find third countries to take in Gaza’s population, months after United States President Donald Trump suggested they be expelled and the territory redeveloped as a holiday destination.
“Nakba Day is no longer just a memory – it’s a daily reality we live in Gaza,” said 36-year-old Malak Radwan, speaking from Nuseirat in the centre of the enclave.
“This is a miserable day in the lives of Palestinian refugees,” said 52-year-old Nael Nakhleh in Ramallah, whose family comes from the village of al-Majdal near Jaffa in what is now Israel.
Palestinian refugees maintain their demand to return to the villages and cities in current-day Israel that they or their relatives were forced to leave in 1948. The “right of return” remains a core issue in the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and Palestine.