Al Nakba Anniversary

The Hon. M. EL DANNAWI (15:55): Today, 15 May, is an annual day of mourning for Palestinians, who will commemorate the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, or 'the catastrophe' in English. The destruction of Palestinian society and homeland was carried out by Zionist forces on this day in 1948 in what would become the modern state of Israel. Around 750,000 Palestinians were either violently expelled or fled under the threat of violence from their homes, becoming permanently displaced with no right of return. At least 15,000 Palestinians were killed.

Today, I would like to share some stories. Eighteen-year-old Dima al-Lamdani recounts the day that her residential building was attacked by Israeli military forces. Of the nearly 50 people in the building, 17 were members of Dima's family. Only Dima, her brother and her two young cousins survived. When she was brought to identify the bodies of her loved ones, she could hardly recognise them as their features changed.

Samah Aladini lost her daughter, whose home was struck without warning. Now caring for her six-year-old granddaughter Nai'emah, who survived the air strike, Samah says, 'I remember my slain daughter. How can her little girl live without parents?' The air strike had killed Nai'emah's parents, paternal grandparents and her siblings. She recalls that her mother had been cooking, her grandfather listening to the radio and her grandmother praying.

Little Omar was only seven years old when his family home was hit. His mother, his father and his twin brother were all killed, leaving him in the care of his aunt. A doctor who treated him remembers trying to understand why he was repeatedly closing his eyes. Omar's aunt explained that Omar was so terrified that he would forget what his mother and father looked like. He closed his eyes because he could not bear the thought that not only had he lost them in this world but that he might also lose them in his imagination.

Tala Herzallah, a 21-year-old university student, recalls being trapped with her brother, his wife and his children, her mother and her father after her workplace was destroyed. There was blood everywhere and they were counting their days and their minutes until death. Nowhere was safe, and everything was scarce.

These stories are not from the Nakba 1948. These are all stories from civilians in Gaza throughout the last seven months. Their stories are not unique. If I stood for a week in this chamber, I still would not be able to tell them all. You may hear people today say that we are witnessing a second Nakba, but that is not the case. The Nakba never ended. The Nakba is not an isolated event in history. It has manifested itself into an ongoing system of oppression. It is a practice that both preceded and followed the establishment of the Israeli state.

Since 7 October 2023, the United Nations has reported over 35,000 fatalities in Gaza, with nearly 10,000 bodies still unidentified. Eighty thousand people have been maimed and two million displaced, there is a mass famine and everything has been destroyed. With 1.3 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, 600,000 of them being children, the Israeli state's latest ground invasion demonstrates, yet again, a blatant disregard for the basic principles of international humanitarian and human rights laws. To attack what is now the primary humanitarian hub in the Gaza Strip, where many are already injured, sick, malnourished, traumatised or living with disability, is land seizure through force. This is an attempt to erase an entire population, their culture and their personhood.

History has shown us that, once displaced, Palestinians are not allowed to return. So what will happen to those millions who remain displaced in Gaza? The difference between the 1948 Nakba and the catastrophe that we are seeing today is not the actions of the Israeli state but the fact that we in the West now have a front-row seat to the horror, thanks to social media and technology. To quote author William S. Burroughs, there are no innocent bystanders.