Today, the 15th of May, marks the 76th anniversary of the Nakba of our Palestinian people, which resulted in the displacement of about 950,000 Palestinians from their original cities and towns, out of 1,400,000 Palestinians who lived in 1,300 villages and cities.

The Nakba anniversary this year comes as the barbaric Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip continues for the 222nd day in a row, which led, according to an infinite toll, to the martyrdom of 35,173, the majority of whom were children and women, in addition to the injury of 79,061 citizens, and thousands of victims are still under the rubble.

Nakba commemoration activities will be held this year under the slogan: “Despite the genocide, we remain, and despite the displacement, we will return.”

The Supreme National Commemoration Committee has announced a series of events in all Palestinian governorates, while the central event will be in the city of Ramallah, where a march will begin in front of the tomb of the late President Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian citizens in the diaspora camps, as well as in Jerusalem and the West Bank, go out in massive marches, raising flags bearing the names of the cities and villages left by their ancestors, Palestinian flags, black flags, and others with the “Key to Return” painted on them, while a siren is sounded and the movement stops for seventy-six seconds, which is the number of years. that has passed since the Nakba.

Today, about 5.9 million Palestinian refugees are distributed between the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, according to United Nations figures.

According to the Palestinian Information Center, during the Nakba, Zionist gangs took control of 774 Palestinian villages and cities, 531 of which were completely destroyed, and their cultural and historical landmarks were obliterated, and what remained was subjected to the occupation entity and its laws.

The year of the Nakba also witnessed more than 70 massacres carried out by Zionist gangs, which Britain supplied with weapons and support, such as the Deir Yassin and Tantura massacres, more than 15 thousand martyrs, and many battles between Palestinian resistance and Arab armies on the one hand, and the Israeli occupation on the other hand.

531 towns and villages were destroyed and erased, and Israeli colonies were established on their lands. Large cities were also occupied, some of which witnessed violent battles and were subjected to occupation bombing that resulted in the destruction of large parts of them. Today, some of them have turned into cities inhabited by Israelis only, and others have become mixed cities.

According to the records of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the number of Palestinian refugee camps reached 58 official camps affiliated with the agency, distributed as follows: 10 camps in Jordan, 9 camps in Syria, 12 camps in Lebanon, 19 camps in the West Bank, and 8 camps in the Gaza Strip.

The occupation, which declared the establishment of its state on this day 76 years ago, controlled 78% of the area of historical Palestine (27,000 square kilometers), with the support of British colonialism in implementation of the alleged Balfour Declaration in 1917 and facilitating the immigration of Jews to Palestine, and the colonial role in making a decision. Partition (United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 181 of 1947, which the United States of America and France worked to issue), then came the setback and the expansion of colonization and displacement, and the occupation took control of more than 85% of the area of Palestine.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, “the total number of Palestinians in the world reached 14.63 million people at the end of 2023,” noting that “the number of Palestinians has multiplied about 10 times since the events of the Nakba of 1948.”

It explained that the Palestinians are distributed around the world as follows: “5 million and 500 thousand in the State of Palestine (the West Bank, including Jerusalem and Gaza), and about one million and 750 thousand in the 1948 territories (Israel), while the number of Palestinians in the Arab countries reached about 6 million and 560.” One thousand, and about 772 thousand in foreign countries.”