photos collected from the archive of Palestinian Nakba 

Nakba, meaning catastrophe, is commemorated by Palestinians throughout the world on May 15 every year. It marks the loss, dispossession and historic injustice suffered by the Palestinian people, through the forced expulsion from their homeland by Israeli
forces and Zionist militia. Nakba commemorates the period when approximately 800,000 Palestinians, at the time 67% of the population, became homeless and/or, stateless refugees. Today, it is estimated that 7 of the 11 million Palestinians around the world are refugees -inside and outside Palestine-, still roughly two-thirds of the Palestinian people.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) maintains that without a just and comprehensive resolution to the plight of Palestinian refugees, which includes the recognition of their loss, pain, and suffering, a comprehensive and viable peace in the region will remain elusive.
In addition to the loss of material property, including homes, land, orchards, groves, gold, money and other valuables, Nakba marks a cultural catastrophe for the Palestinian people, a loss they are still struggling to recover from.
Nakba, for Palestine, is about the loss of potential on a mass scale. It is about reducing a vibrant and highly accomplished culture into one filled with bitter-sweet memories consumed by the national cause of return and justice. Entire villages were destroyed, then rebuilt and renamed; books, music collections and works of art were left behind as people ran for their lives, expecting to return a few weeks later; sports clubs and social organizations disappeared with the communities of which they were a part. It was a systematic campaign of death, destruction, and cultural obliteration, carried out against a nation whose vibrant culture was forcibly stunted.
This document is a snapshot of Palestine before the Nakba. It is by no means comprehensive. Its aim is to provide a window into the Palestinian cultural achievements before 1948 and the devastating effects of this cultural Nakba on the Palestinians, a people whose sheer resilience has preserved a threatened heritage and collective memory. With perseverance and creativity, Palestinians have rebuilt, time and again, their institutions and reconstructed their cultural life, overcoming repeated setbacks and assaults. In short, Nakba is an on-going story of survival

The Untold Story of a Cultural Catastrophe Al Nakba (2)

 

Al-Nakba, a documentary produced by Al-jazeera: