Nakba of 1948 and Today Are Not Separate Events, but Ongoing Process of Palestinian Displacement, Replacement, Speakers Tell Panel, Urging Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
The Nakba of 1948 and today’s Nakba in Gaza are not two separate events, the Chair of the United Nations Palestinian Rights Committee told a special event at UN Headquarters in New York today, stressing the need for an immediate ceasefire in the Strip and to achieve Statehood for Palestinians.
“Today, we again commemorate the events of 1948 and subsequent years, which led to the dispossession and displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral lands,” said Cheikh Niang (Senegal), Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, as he opened a panel discussion titled “1948-2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba”.
After the atrocities committed by Hamas and other militant groups on 7 October 2023, “the Israeli response was and continues to be disproportionate and indiscriminate,” he said, asserting that “breaches of norms by one group do not excuse breaches of international law and norms by another”. Between 1948 and 2024, Israel continued its illegal actions. “The Nakba, thus, is an ongoing process affecting the Palestinian people over generations.”
The State of Palestine has recently been officially recognized by all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries — an example to follow, he said. The international community — Member States and civil society alike — must redouble efforts to end the occupation and this ongoing Nakba, he stressed, and finally realize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including to self-determination and independence as well as a just resolution to the plight of Palestine refugees.
Also addressing the opening of today’s event was Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, who said that “the Nakba encompasses both a personal tragedy for every Palestinian family and a collective deed” — in which most of an entire nation was uprooted overnight from its ancestral land while the rest were treated like strangers in their own country. “The Nakba is an enterprise of displacement and replacement of people that continues to this very day,” he observed, adding that it took 75 years for the UN to recognize and commemorate it.
Today, the people in Gaza are besieged, bombed and starved with the aim of their destruction or removal, he said. The Israeli Government no longer hides its true intentions of “a second Nakba”, leaving the Palestinians with three options: displacement, subjugation, or deaths — in other words, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or genocide, he warned.
However, there is now universal recognition of the Palestinian people, and soon, it will be matched by universal recognition of the Palestinian State, he said. There is a global consensus to end the Israeli occupation, fulfil Palestinian rights, and have two States — Palestine and Israel — living side by side. “It is time for accountability and justice so freedom and peace can be achieved,” he declared, commending the brave students from the United States and all corners of the globe who give voice to the Palestinian cause.
The Committee then heard a series of poems by Zeina Azzam, a Palestinian-United States writer, poet, editor and community activist, which explored themes of war, displacement and the experiences of refugees and immigrants. She said one poem, “Write My Name”, was written after she learned that some parents in Gaza resorted to writing their children’s names on their legs to help identify them should they be killed.
In the ensuing panel discussion, Ardi Imseis, Assistant Professor and Academic Director at Queen’s University, Ottawa, spoke of how UN resolution 181 of 29 November 1947 recommended the partition of Palestine against the will of the country’s indigenous population and in contravention of international law. The declared goal of Western States that dominated the United Nations then “was to rectify Europe’s centuries-old Jewish question in the wake of the Holocaust and to do so at the expense of the innocent third-party Palestinians,” he explained, adding that little to nothing is being done to stop the Nakba by those in a position to do so.
Echoing that sentiment, Phyllis Bennis, Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, underscored that both Apartheid in South Africa and the Nakba in Palestine were enabled by Western colonial interests, pointing out that the United States is currently “the main enabler of the current version of the Nakba that is under way in Gaza”. Since the creation of the “special relationship” between the Governments of the United States and Israel in 1967, the former has guaranteed the latter absolute impunity — including at the UN, where Washington, D.C., has used its veto to undermine efforts towards a ceasefire in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021 and “now again”. Spotlighting the UN’s role in the struggle against Apartheid, she urged those present to use that model “to be on the right side of history”.
For her part, Karameh Kuemmerle, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, said that the mission of Doctors against Genocide, which she co-founded, goes beyond the mere treatment of medical wounds and involves addressing deep systematic injustices, stressing that “prevention is far superior to treatment”. Now trapped in Rafah, her team is treating patients while sleeping on the floor. “Their commitment is only strengthened by the suffering of the children in Gaza,” she said.
Opening Remarks
CHEIKH NIANG (Senegal), Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, opened today’s event, titled “1948-2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba”. He recalled that the Committee hosted the first-ever UN commemoration of the Nakba to observe its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2023. “Today, we again commemorate the events of 1948 and subsequent years, which led to the dispossession and displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral lands,” he said. After the atrocities committed by Hamas and other militant groups on 7 October 2023, “the Israeli response was and continues to be disproportionate and indiscriminate”. He asserted that “breaches of norms by one group do not excuse breaches of international law and norms by another”. Calling the development over the past seven months “unparalleled in recent history”, he noted that almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 80,000 injured — the vast majority women and children. “That is 1 in every 25 Gazans killed,” he deplored.
“The Nakba of 1948 and today’s Nakba in Gaza are not two separate, distinct events,” he said, highlighting Israel’s ongoing actions all that time in between, including occupation and dispossession of Palestinian property, denial of rights, arbitrary arrests including of children, brutal and disproportionate use of force, Judaization of East Jerusalem and its cultural symbols, eviction and displacement of its inhabitants. The Nakba, thus, is an ongoing process affecting the Palestinian people over generations. Conflict is spreading in the Middle East, the Security Council appears paralyzed, and Member States are divided. Asking what can be done, he urged citizens of their States, civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations, Governments and international organizations to play their part, working together. Within the United Nations, the Committee plays a key role in advocacy, he stressed.
Noting that the State of Palestine has recently been officially recognized by Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas, he said that all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) members have now done so — an example to follow. Nobody is above the law, and grave breaches of international law and norms must have consequences. “We call on the international community — Member States and civil society alike — to redouble efforts our efforts to end the occupation, end this ongoing Nakba, and bring to reality the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including to self-determination and independence and a just resolution to the plight of Palestine refugees,” he said. The Committee will continue to work towards the day that the Palestinian people will enjoy all their inalienable rights and live in a State of their own, in peace and prosperity, based on a two-State solution, he pledged.
RIYAD MANSOUR, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, said that “the Nakba encompasses both a personal tragedy for every Palestinian family and a collective deed”. It is a historic injustice endured by an entire nation, a majority of which was uprooted overnight from its ancestral land while the rest were treated like strangers in their own country. “The Nakba is an enterprise of displacement and replacement of people that continues to this very day,” he said, adding that it took 75 years for the UN to recognize and commemorate it. Moreover, he emphasized, it is a terrible reality still endured by the Palestinian people, “as Israel has yet to abandon its plans to push us out of history and geography”. The people in Gaza are besieged, bombed and starved with the aim of their destruction or removal. The Israeli Government no longer hides its true intentions of “a second Nakba”, leaving the Palestinians with three options: displacement, subjugation, or deaths — in other words, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, or genocide.
However, he underscored that there is now universal recognition of the Palestinian people, and soon, it will be matched by universal recognition of the Palestinian State. There is a global consensus to end the Israeli occupation, fulfil Palestinian rights, and have two States — Palestine and Israel — living side by side. “It is time for accountability and justice so freedom and peace can be achieved,” he declared, stressing that Gaza is composed mainly of refugees who endured the Nakba and must live through it once again. “Enough pain, enough suffering — it is time to end the occupation and exodus and save the generations to come from death, servitude, and displacement,” he said, commending the brave students from the United States and all corners of the globe who give voice to the Palestinian cause. Palestine has become a symbol of all freedom- and peace-loving nations. “Palestine’s destiny was, is and will always be freedom,” he stated, adding: “End injustice and free Palestine.”
Poetry Reading
The Committee then heard a series of poems by ZEINA AZZAM, a Palestinian-United States writer, poet, editor and community activist, which explored themes of war, displacement and the experiences of refugees and immigrants.
In the first, titled “My Father is Now a Memory”, she wrote of her father, searching for Palestine in the figs and roses in his garden that now mourn for him — “he loved us, we loved him”, they say. “My father yearned for the homeland he saw again only once in 50 years,” she wrote. “We should never have left,” he would say — but he might have been killed had he stayed, she said. And, then, perhaps she would never have been born — “a fig tree cut down, a fig imagined”. Her father bought 15 roses the day before he died, she remembered, but planted only three. The others were given away, she said, where they will yearn for him, planted far from home, “refugees in diaspora”. “He loved us, we loved him,” they say.
The next poem — “Write My Name” — was written after learning that some parents in Gaza resorted to writing their children’s names on their legs to help identify them should they be killed, she said. “Write my name on my leg, Mama,” she wrote, “and on the legs of my sisters and brothers — this way we will belong together, this way we will be known as your children”. The last stanza read: “Write my name on my leg, Mama. When the bomb hits our house, when the walls crush our skulls and bones, our legs will tell the story — how there was nowhere for us to run.”
Noting the centrality of the concept of khayr — or “goodness” — to Arab culture, she turned to her next poem, titled by that word, and observed: “How lovely it is that one of the major touchstones of our lives is the idea of goodness.” Recalling that — no matter the misfortune — her mother was “sure Allah would eventually bring khayr to Palestine”, she said that khayr resides in Palestine’s bones, “from morning til night, in a mother’s kiss at bedtime, deep in a farmer’s land — there, the roots of khayr multiply in the earth, goodness bristling”.
She then recalled the words of Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet, who once said: “Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance.” Inspired by the colours of the Palestinian flag — and how it has been illegal to display them — she said that her final poem, “Colours for the Diaspora”, can be read as an elegy to those displaced and dispossessed of their home, “searching for the colours of their land and struggling for the liberation of Palestine”. Noting the silver stars of her ancestors traveling a displaced orbit in a blue-black night around a lost sun, she said they repeat: “When will we see the colours of our land, when will we land?”
Panel Discussion
The Committee then held a panel discussion, titled “1948-2024: The Ongoing Palestinian Nakba.”
ARDI IMSEIS, Assistant Professor and Academic Director at Queen’s University, Ottawa, said that “it is exceedingly difficult to speak about the Nakba in a manner that sufficiently captures the enormity of the Palestinian predicament”. What the Palestinian people have been enduring for three-quarters of a century is a singular experience of an unmitigated disaster of the sustained and concerted effort to do away with their collective and national existence in their native land. The Nakba is “a structure, not an event”. Yet, little to nothing is being done to stop it by those in a position to do so. A small number of Western States and political elites led by the United States are actively colluding, he said, stressing: “These Western States have fashioned all manner of Orwellian justifications for their collusion with the Nakba in Gaza”.
Turning to “the fateful decision made by the then Western-dominated General Assembly” to recommend the partition of Palestine against the will of the country’s indigenous population through resolution 181 of 29 November 1947, he pointed out that a review of the terms of the partition plan and the accompanying UN record recounted in his recently published book titled The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity reveals that the plan was illegal under prevailing international law. The terms of that plan revealed an absolute contempt for the principle of self-determination of Palestinians.
Partition was not based on international legal considerations, he stressed. Rather, it was driven by hegemonic European States and their settler colonial affiliates for political reasons. “The declared goal of these States was to rectify Europe’s centuries-old Jewish question in the wake of the Holocaust and to do so at the expense of the innocent third-party Palestinians,” he said. Gross and systematic violations of relevant international law have since continued for almost eight decades, compounded by myriad actions of Israel, administrative, legislative, judicial, and now military. As noted by the UN Secretary-General on 25 October, the events of 7 October did not happen in a vacuum.
KARAMEH KUEMMERLE, Assistant Professor and M.D., Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of Doctors against Genocide, said the Nakba is the catastrophe of the Palestinian people, “a word that does not do justice to the ongoing complete denial of their human rights and self-determination”. A culmination of the settler-colonial legacy in their homeland, this genocide is a disease with many symptoms — mass killing, mass expulsion, forced eviction, unlawful settlement, land confiscation, pogroms and detention. “I am a clinician and, as clinicians, we diagnose,” she said, noting the failure to formally recognize the Nakba as genocide despite meeting all the criteria of clear intent, organization, and preparation for the crime. This includes arming militias with the explicit purpose of carrying out atrocities, as documented in declassified Israeli archives. She also highlighted that the international community’s complicity in legitimizing these heinous acts “has only empowered the perpetrators”.
On the contrary, she continued, the international community rewarded the perpetrators by recognizing their State. In this regard, South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice aims to ensure that the perpetrators of the Nakba are finally held accountable. She further underlined that proposals such as the two-State solution faced opposition from Israel, which views the Palestinians as “security or demographic threats”. “They demanded re-education of the Palestinians and constant reassurance of permanent security from us while our people were the ones violated, violently abused, and marginalized,” she said, adding that “some stated that the illegal settlements were needed for the Israeli security”. The mission of Doctors Against Genocide goes beyond the mere treatment of medical wounds and involves addressing deep systematic injustices that prevent healing and peace, she said, stressing that “prevention is far superior to treatment”. Now trapped in Rafah, some of her team is treating patients while sleeping on the floor — however, she said, “their commitment is only strengthened by the suffering of the children in Gaza.”
PHYLLIS BENNIS, Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, recalled that 1948 saw the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. However, it also gave rise to Apartheid in South Africa and the Nakba in Palestine. “Instead of an era of human rights, we saw a continuation of the era of settler colonialism,” she said. Both Apartheid and the Nakba were enabled by Western colonial interests and, while South Africa and Namibia are now free, she pointed out that the United States is currently “the main enabler of the current version of the Nakba that is under way in Gaza”. The United States is “arming genocide” through its provision of both military aid and “absolute impunity” to Israel, she stressed, noting that three times as many people have been killed in Gaza than during the original Nakba in 1948 and that almost the entirety of the Strip’s infrastructure has been destroyed.
She went on to note that, since the creation of the “special relationship” between the Governments of the United States and Israel in 1967, the former has guaranteed the latter absolute impunity — including at the UN, where the United States has used its veto to undermine efforts towards a ceasefire in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021. “Now, again, the US has said ‘we don’t need a ceasefire yet’,” she added. Underscoring that the specific intent contemplated by the Genocide Convention has repeatedly been made clear by Israeli officials — to wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth, to bring it back to the Stone Age, that they were “dealing with animals and not people” — she emphasized: “They weren’t worried about these statements because they knew they had the protection of the United States.” South Africa, however, said to the world that “the institutions largely created in the interests of colonial countries” in the post-Second World War moment “could now themselves be claimed” by once-colonized countries.
This was a victory even before the almost-unanimous ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel’s actions are “possibly genocidal”, she stressed, noting that those actions were first welcomed by the President of the United States “with a bear hug and with more weapons”. While the United States “is now more complicit in this genocide than it has ever been before”, she pointed out that — this time — there are consequences. Public opinion has shifted across the United States in an unprecedented manner, where the re-election of an official is now threatened because that official is perceived as being too supportive of Israel. Yet, while the White House’s rhetoric has shifted, this has not translated into accepting the need for ceasefire. Spotlighting the UN’s role in the struggle against Apartheid, she urged those present to use that model “to be on the right side of history”.
Question and Answer Session
When the floor opened for comments and questions, the representatives of several Member States expressed support for Palestinians and joined the call to stop a new Nakba.
The representative of South Africa said Israel’s actions in Rafah — part of its end game to destroy Gaza completely — are evidence of its genocidal intent. Calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, she warned that the evacuation zones that Israel has ordered the people to go to are basically “the extermination zones”. “Rafah is the last stage of the total annihilation of Palestinian life,” she said, adding: “Without Rafah, the possibility to rebuild and reconstruct Palestinian life will be lost forever”.
The speaker for China said that the historical injustice suffered by the Palestinian people “has not been rectified, but rather accelerated”, urging Israel to heed the strong voices of the international community. The speaker for Indonesia expressed regret that 76 years on, the question of the Palestinian refugees remains unresolved, stating that “we even see now growing resistance to recognizing their basic rights and their rights of return”.
The representative of the League of Arab States stressed that the international community’s primary mission is to prevent a new Nakba, which aims to displace Palestinians out of Gaza into countries in the region. Stressing the need to explore mechanisms to prevent it, he thanked all Member States that supported the recent General Assembly resolution towards the eventual admission of Palestine as a fully-fledged member of the United Nations.
Also speaking were the delegates of Malaysia, Pakistan and Türkiye, as well as some civil society organizations.
Mr. MANSOUR, re-taking the floor and recalling the General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution commemorating the Nakba, said it acknowledged — after 75 years — “that there is a Nakba that has been inflicted on the Palestinian people”. He also recalled a cultural performance, held in the Assembly Hall, where Palestinian and other musicians displayed the story of the Nakba in four movements — life before, during and after that horror, as well as “the resiliency of the Palestinian people and their determination to continue their struggle for the attainment of their inalienable rights”. He urged those wishing to hold this performance in their own countries to do so. He added that “we will not rest for a moment until we succeed in having an immediate ceasefire”, which will save lives, provide needed humanitarian aid and “not allow the fascist Israeli Government to storm Rafah”.
The floor also opened for members of civil society to pose questions to the panellists. A representative of the Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church asked the Committee — given the urgency of the situation — what steps the UN can take towards an arms embargo, enforcing compliance with the ruling of the International Court of Justice and banking sanctions — “something very powerful used in the anti-Apartheid struggle”.
A speaker representing a delegation of rabbis then took the floor to point out that “Jews have always been able to live amongst Arabs and Muslims” and to condemn those who “use the façade of my religion — that my grandparents died in Auschwitz for — as a stick to stifle those opposing stealing the homes of Palestinians”. Recalling that those who opposed Apartheid were called “terrorists”, he underscored that this occupation — like Apartheid — will end so people “can live and serve God together in freedom”. Ms. AZZAM’s niece, noting social-media posts about what Israel is planning for the future of Gaza, then asked what that future should look like.
Another speaker — representing Doctors Against Genocide — said that the reason for the current genocide is that the international community “never addressed the original sin”. Instead, in the same month that the UN recognized genocide as an international crime, it turned a blind eye to the Nakba. He then asked what it would take for the UN to create a special body to restudy the Nakba as an act of genocide to both hold perpetrators accountable and strengthen the case currently before the International Court of Justice.
As the panellists re-took the floor to respond, Ms. AZZAM — answering the question of what to do now — underscored: “Keep Palestine at the top of the agenda.” She also urged those present to look at Palestine not only as a place of conflict, but one with a rich history, culture and heritage.
Mr. IMSEIS noted the inflection point in international relations, modern history and the UN that pits a small number of Western States “that carry the torch of neo-imperialism” against everyone else. To the former, “some rights, some States and some peoples remain more equal than others”, he said, while noting that States have many legal bases on which to act — including economic, cultural, civil, political and social. Adding that “these are the five heads of human rights”, he urged States to use them to ensure that their bilateral and multilateral relations with Israel send the message: “We will not stand for these actions.”
Ms. KUEMMERLE pointed out that “what is happening now is a new paradigm for this generation to correct global injustices together”. The situation in Palestine is energizing many who have never been activists, and this will make the world a better place for everyone. Recalling that so many changes of which humanity can be proud were achieved because people mobilized, she said: “People make their Governments do things.” Now, as people are demanding change and a better world, their Governments must oblige.
Ms. BENNIS, stressing that it is not enough to call for ceasefire, urged: “Stop sending weapons.” On Palestine’s future, she said that it is the Palestinian diaspora, those in refugee camps and those in the Occupied Palestinian Territory who must make that call. “Do not allow the United States decision to pull out its funding to mean that UNRWA cannot survive,” she said, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and calling for taking the place of countries that criminally refuse to pay. She also emphasized that the UN does not belong to capitals, corporations or the United States — “it belongs to the people of the world”. Thus, when such people call for immediate ceasefire, it is up to the UN to be part of the mobilization that makes that happen.