Nakba day protest, Gaza Strip, 2019
For over 75 years, Israel has subjected Palestinians to ethnic cleansing, dispossession and lethal violence. Today, Palestinian lives, homes and land are under urgent threat from Israel’s far-right government — which is accelerating its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
Alongside plans to dramatically expand its illegal settlements by stealing Palestinian land, Israel is targeting Palestinian communities with intensified violence — including indiscriminate airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, military incursions into towns in the West Bank, and the systematic demolition of homes, schools and hospitals. Israeli settlers, emboldened by Israel’s government and backed by Israeli armed forces, have unleashed unprecedented violence on Palestinians – tearing down olive trees, and burning cars and homes.
This violence is rooted in Israel’s settler-colonial project and the systemic dispossession that Palestinians have faced for 75 years. In 1948, over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from historic Palestine to make way for the establishment of the state of Israel on Palestinian land. Palestinians call this the Nakba (Arabic for ‘catastrophe’). Whilst Palestinians in the occupied territory and historic Palestine face the constant threat of forced displacement, over 7 million live as refugees — denied their fundamental right of return to their homes by Israel.
Israel’s crimes are made possible by the complicity of the international community that has failed time and again to hold Israel to account. The UK government continues to license trade in arms with Israel, and to provide material support for Israel’s illegal settlement project by allowing trade with these illegal settlements — in violation of international law.
Against Israel’s intense repression, Palestinians have never forgotten their villages and homeland they were expelled from. Palestinians everywhere remain united and defiant in their struggle to defend their lands, realise their rights, and return to their homes. They are asking for our solidarity to end the complicity of our government and corporations around the world.
For 75 years, international solidarity has been critical in supporting the Palestinian people to continue their struggle for justice. Today, it is up to us to compel our institutions to act to defend the Palestinian people against another 75 years of Nakba. Write to your MP to support Palestinians’ fundamental rights and demand an end to UK complicity in the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians — by ending the UK-Israel arms trade and ending trade with illegal settlements.
