The Nakba is remembered in Palestine and Lebanon

Every day, the correspondents’ club describes how the same current event is illustrated in two countries.

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During a protest on May 15, 2023 in Ramallah, a man raises a key symbolizing the homes of Palestinians who fled or were evicted from their homes 75 years ago during the "Nakba or the "disaster" in Arabic.  (HAZEM BADER / AFP)

The Palestinians commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, Arab “catastrophe”. On May 15, 1948, the day after the proclamation of the State of Israel, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their lands. This day also marks the destruction of more than 500 villages.

>>> For the Palestinians, 75 years after the Nakba, “the dispossession has not stopped, the displacements continue”

This traumatic event is transmitted from generation to generation in Palestine. In Ramallah, a siren sounded Monday, May 15, for 75 seconds, photos of the Nakba were pasted all over the city. Inhabitants carry keys of return, symbol of those of their houses that they had to abandon, symbol also of the hope of returning to their land “We affirm our attachment to our country, to our land, to our water, to our sky, explain Rukaya Nazzala resident of Ramallah. Each year, we are here to remember that what we have lost is still ours.” Today, land colonization continues. The displacement of Palestinians is still ongoing, particularly in Jerusalem or in the rural areas of the occupied West Bank.

A sad anniversary for the 200,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

For 75 years, these refugees have dreamed of an almost impossible return. Currently, there are more than 200,000 in Lebanon. Over the decades, the camps to house them have become towns with houses and small buildings. But these 12 camps are unsanitary. In Lebanon, these refugees are deprived of their most basic rights. Access to healthcare is very limited, children cannot study in Lebanese schools and once adults, everything is done so that they cannot work in most sectors.


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