Nakba survivor says Israeli ‘brutality’ worse than 77 years ago
Israeli forces destroyed homes in the occupied West Bank and killed dozens in Gaza as Palestinians marked 77 years since the Nakba. Israel’s “brutality” has displaced 85-year-old Nakba survivor Mohammed once again, but he says this time it’s worse.
Nakba continues to this day for Palestinians
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has said the Arabic term “ongoing Nakba” accurately represents the ideology and strategy that informs Israeli actions to this day.
“The ethnic cleansing of 1948 was incomplete, although it resulted in the expulsion of half of the Palestinian population,” Pappe, who chairs the Nakba Memorial Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
“After Israel occupied all of historical Palestine in 1967, Palestinians remained under direct or indirect rule of the Jewish state. This is still an impulse of Israel – to try and have as much as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.”
While the manifestations of the Nakba have changed over the years, “the impulse is the same and the impact on Palestinians is the same in the last 77 years”, Pappe said.
The historian added that Israel’s current leadership “believes that now is a historical opportunity to complete what has not been completed in 1948”.
“We had ethnic cleansing in 1948 and now we have genocide in Gaza,” he said.
