In partnership with
In the shadow of what many Palestinians are describing as a second Nakba in Gaza, around 15,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in the 27th annual March of Return on Tuesday. After gathering in the northern city of Shefa-Amr, participants marched to the site of Hawsha and Al-Kasair, Palestinian villages that were forcibly depopulated during the Nakba of 1948 and subsequently destroyed.
Although Nakba Day is officially marked on May 15, the March of Return is held every year on Israel’s Independence Day, under the slogan “Their independence is our Nakba.” In recent years, the march has become the central mobilizing event for Palestinian citizens of Israel, uniting all groups and political forces. It is organized by the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in Israel, which selects one of the more than 600 Palestinian localities uprooted by Zionist or Israeli militias in 1947-49 as the march’s destination.
The number of Palestinians who were expelled or forced to flee from their homes in those years and prevented from returning was around 750,000; the number displaced in Gaza since October 7 exceeds 1.9 million.
‘I see myself as a child in the eyes of every girl in Gaza’
As with every act of protest initiated by Palestinian citizens of Israel since October 7, the Israeli police impeded the organization of the march, although they did not prevent it from taking place. “The police and other official bodies, such as the Fire Authority and Magen David Adom [Israel’s emergency medical service], have made many demands — including that we not use ‘inciting slogans,’ according to their definition,” Mosa Sagher, a member of the organizing committee whose family was displaced from the village of Hawsha, told +972.
“There has been a kind of fear in recent months among the public, and maybe some people are still a little concerned,” Sagher continued. “But in general, we feel that the sense of alarm has diminished. This year, in addition to the traditional slogans of the March of Return, our main demand was to end the war. The fact that the march was routed far from residential areas also reduced the possibility of tension.”
Salwa Copty, a board member of the organizing committee who was herself expelled from the village of Ma’alul during the Nakba, described the parallels between her own experience and what Palestinians in Gaza are facing today at the hands of the Israeli military. “The children who suddenly find themselves without homes, without families, the scenes of mass displacement — [it all] reminds me of my childhood,” she told +972.
Before Copty was born, she said, Zionist forces killed her father when he went out to buy food. Her mother was in the advanced months of pregnancy when they were uprooted in 1948. “They hid the location of my father’s grave from us and prevented us from going there for more than 70 years, and now we see it all coming back in Gaza,” she said. “It is Nakba in the full sense of the word.
“For years I have been saying that the Nakba and I are twins — it has accompanied me throughout my life,” Copy continued. “And now the sight of Gaza burns me, reminding me of my tragedy. I see myself as a child in the eyes of every girl in Gaza. This pain has motivated me to participate in the march and call for an immediate end to the war.
After making an appearance at the commemorations, Palestinian rapper and actor Tamer Nafar told +972: “Performing today at the March of Return affirmed our solidarity with Gaza and made a clear link between what has been happening for over seven months and the Nakba of 1948. Since October 7, the authorities, this fascist dictatorship, have tried to silence us all. But you cannot separate Gaza from the settlements in the West Bank, crime and violence among Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the Nakba. It’s all connected.
“The crowd was a mix of young and old, men and women, babies and teenagers,” Nafar continued. “This in itself is a source of light that will fill me with hope for some time. It’s very moving to see Palestinian kids at the march singing Palestinian national songs. A long time ago, Israeli leaders thought the third generation of the Nakba will forget. This is the fourth generation and they still remember.”
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.
\
[ad_2]
Source link
