Davin News Server

by Salman Abu Sitta

I am a survivor of Al Nakba of 1948. Since then, for the last 76
years, I spent my life pondering over this tragedy, documenting it,
telling people around the world about it, and making plans to reverse
it by implementing the Right of Return. Little did I know that a
bigger and more bloody event was awaiting us in the yearlong campaign
of Genocide in Gaza. 

How do these two events compare for someone like me who lived to see
both?

Both events lasted a year, at least so far. Al Nakba of 1948 started
in March 1948 when the Haganah, the Zionist militia, started to invade
Palestine before the state of Israel was declared. It was concluded by
signing armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, who sent
forces to save Palestinians but failed. Syria signed the agreement
four months later.

It was an uncontested campaign. Haganah forces, consisting of 120,000
soldiers, some of whom were WWII veterans, formed nine brigades and
carried out 38 military operations. On the defending side was a motley
group of Arab forces, not exceeding 10,000 fighters operating under
different commands.

The result is clear. The Zionist forces occupied 20,500 km2, or 78% of
Palestine, depopulated 530 cities and villages of its people, and made
two-thirds of Palestinian refugees until today.

At the time, Israel had a small air force and negligible navy. It
relied on foot soldiers to occupy and gain territory. 

Israel lost 6,000 soldiers. It killed 15,000 Palestinians, mainly
unarmed villagers, and took a similar number to forced labor camps
where they were used as slave labor for years.

The equation between the number of soldiers and the size of occupied
territory is clear. Relatively few soldiers occupied a very large
territory against marginal resistance.

Fast forward 76 years. The descendants of the 1948 refugees were
crammed in refugee camps in Gaza at a density of 8000 persons per km2.
This has now been doubled since October 7. They created a resistance
force of about 15,000 fighters as some say. They dug themselves into
underground tunnels.

Over 12 months, Israel unleashed its force on them, over half a
million soldiers, a formidable tank force, and a lethal advanced air
force. Israel pulverized the landscape in the Gaza Strip and killed
and injured over 200,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were women
and children. It was a massacre unprecedented in modern history. 

The ethnic cleansing of 1948 was elevated into a full Genocide in
2024.

But the defenders never surrendered. They are still fighting.

Israel failed to occupy one kilometer of the land permanently. 

The contrast between 1948 and 2024 is bewildering.

In 1948, the Israeli occupation of the land was carried out by
soldiers. In 2024, Israeli soldiers were almost absent. If they
venture out of tanks, they are hit by resistance fighters, emerging
out of the rubble, carrying only their handheld weapons. We saw on TV
that if one Israeli soldier was hit, the others ran away. We saw
Israeli soldiers being dragged to the front in Gaza, refusing to
enlist or deserting.

This was the difference between soldiers defending their country even
if they were in refugee camps and others who were brought in to occupy
another land and kill another people.

Sitting behind computer screens, as Israelis do, selecting a bank of
targets, sending drones, or flying deadly F35s may cause unbelievable
devastation and indiscriminate deaths among women and children, but it
does not gain an inch of land. 

The land belongs to the people who die for it, in the face of
unbelievable adversity, not only death under the rubble but
starvation, disease, and the loss of all means of life.

There is another difference between 1948 and 2024. On May 14, 1948, we
were attacked in Al-Ma’in, my birthplace, by 24 Israeli armored
vehicles. They destroyed every structure and killed anyone they found.
On that day I became a refugee. On that same day, Ben-Gurion declared
his settler state of Israel.

Nobody in the West knew about us. There were celebrations of victory
in Tel Aviv and New York, hailing the triumph of the minority of
fighting Jews defending themselves against the majority of savage
Arabs trying to kill them.

Nobody cared about us except the devoted few. I recall members of the
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC or the Quakers) who came to
help us. They built the refugee camps, whose names you know today, in
Bureij, Nuseirat, Jabalia, and others. One of their officers wrote to
his Philadelphia HQ on October 12, 1949, describing the state of mind
of the refugees, 

Above all else, they desire to go home—back to their lands and
villages which, in many cases, are very close. Apparently they do not
hesitate to go back to the changed culture which is growing in Israel.
This desire naturally continues to be the strongest demand they make;
sixteen months of exile has not diminished it. Without it, they would
have nothing for which to live. It is expressed in many ways and forms
every day. “Why keep us alive”—is one expression of it. It is as
genuine and deep as a man’s longing for his home can be. In the minds
of refugees, resettlement is not even considered.

But the West did not listen or even wish to know. All the major news
agencies were busy declaring the victory of the Righteous Jews. Their
Middle East correspondents were invariably Zionists. Talking about
Palestinian refugees was an unforgivable sin.

No more. 

In 2024, young people on hundreds of campuses in the United States and
Europe saw the light where justice was to be. They fought against
their rulers, their elders, and their providers to speak a word of
justice and declare, “Palestine is free from the river to the sea.”

People around the world heard about us, and saw our tragedy on TV
screens. Some dared to speak out, defying the sword on their necks. 

It has been an unbelievable historical correction, paid for by the
blood of Palestinians. But will this bring to life hundreds of
thousands of those killed or bring to life the parents of 18,000
orphans? More importantly, will the blood of victims enforce
international law to punish war criminals? Will it give the
International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice
the power to implement their verdicts? Will justice be made and
refugees, the true hostages, return home?

I may not live to see this happen, but I am certain it will happen.
For evil, however powerful, has a short life. 

When justice is made and we, Palestinian refugees, return home, our
long struggle will be rewarded and the hundreds of thousands who were
murdered will not have died in vain. That is because our grandchildren
will live at home once again and the waiting from 1948 and 2024 will
be over. Let all free people make this happen.


Salman Abu Sitta is the founder and president of the Palestine Land
Society, London, dedicated to the documentation of Palestine’s land
and People. He is the author of six books on Palestine, including the
compendium “Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966,” English and Arabic
editions, the “Atlas of the Return Journey” and over 300 papers and
articles on the Palestinian refugees, the Right of Return, and the
history of al-Nakba and human rights. He is credited with extensive
documentation and mapping of Palestine’s land and people over 40
years. His widely acclaimed memoir “Mapping My Return” describes his
life in Palestine and his long struggle as a refugee to return home.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/10/from-ethnic-cleansing-to-genocide/