Dawud Assad still has nightmares of the day Jewish militias attacked his village of Deir Yassin outside Jerusalem 76 years ago. Assad, then 16, peered out his front window to see his village ablaze. As his uncles shot back at the militias firing upon them, Assad escaped. But more than 100 Palestinians, including women, children, and elderly people, were killed in what is now referred to as the Deir Yassin massacre. Assad lost 27 members of his extended family that day, including his grandmother and his two-year-old brother, Omar.
The massacre at Deir Yassin, along with other attacks on Palestinian villages and the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, led to the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe. The Nakba signifies the exodus of some 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from what is now Israel.
Decades before 1948, Jews escaping antisemitism and persecution in Europe sought to establish a Jewish state in what they considered their ancestral homeland. After World War II and the Holocaust, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution in November 1947 to partition Mandatory Palestine into two states – one Arab and one Jewish. The majority of Palestinians and the wider Arab world rejected the resolution.
Following Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, and the invasion by armies of neighboring Arab nations, the war ensued. Many Palestinians, including Assad, were displaced, with some fleeing to neighboring villages.
Since the Nakba, more Palestinians have been displaced, including during the 1967 Middle East war when Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Gaza. Today, millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in refugee camps in various countries.
The right of return for Palestinian refugees has been a contentious issue, with calls for refugee return, property restitution, and compensation. However, the return never materialized, leaving many Palestinians like Leila Giries, who holds the key to her family's lost home, with a sense of fractured identity.
As Palestinians mark the Nakba anniversary, events and demonstrations are planned worldwide, with a focus on the recent conflict in Gaza. The plight of Palestinian refugees remains a central issue, with ongoing challenges and uncertainties surrounding their right to return.
