Palestinians Across the Middle East Mark the Original ‘Nakba’ with Eyes on War in Gaza 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their house due to Israel's military offensive, shelter in a tent, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 13, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their house due to Israel's military offensive, shelter in a tent, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 13, 2024. (Reuters)
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Palestinians Across the Middle East Mark the Original ‘Nakba’ with Eyes on War in Gaza 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their house due to Israel's military offensive, shelter in a tent, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 13, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their house due to Israel's military offensive, shelter in a tent, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 13, 2024. (Reuters)

Palestinians across the Middle East on Wednesday are marking the anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel with protests and other events across the region at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel before and during the war surrounding its creation in 1948.

More than twice that number have been displaced within Gaza since the start of the latest war, which was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into Israel. UN agencies say 550,000 people, nearly a quarter of Gaza's 2.3 million people, have been newly displaced in just the last week, as Israeli forces have pushed into the southern city of Rafah and reinvaded parts of northern Gaza.

“We lived through the Nakba not just once, but several times,” said Umm Shadi Sheikh Khalil, who was displaced from Gaza City and now lives in a tent in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah.

The refugees and their descendants number some 6 million and live in built-up refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In Gaza, they are the majority of the population, with most families having relocated from what is now central and southern Israel.

Israel rejects what the Palestinians say is their right of return, because if it was fully implemented it would likely result in a Palestinian majority within Israel's borders.

PAINFUL MEMORIES The refugee camps in Gaza have seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war. In other camps across the region, the fighting has revived painful memories from earlier rounds of violence in a decades-old conflict with no end in sight.

At a center for elderly residents of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Amina Taher recalled the day her family’s house in the village of Deir al-Qassi, in what is now northern Israel, collapsed over their heads after being shelled by Israeli forces in 1948. The house was next to a school that was being used as a base by Palestinian fighters, she said.

Taher, then 3 years old, was pulled from the rubble unharmed, but her 1-year-old sister was killed. Now she has seen the same scenes play out in news coverage of Gaza.

“When I would watch the news, I had a mental breakdown because then I remembered when the house fell on me,” she said. “What harm did these children do to get killed like this?”

Daoud Nasser, also now living in Shatila, was 6 years old when his family fled from the village of Balad al-Sheikh, near Haifa. His father tried to return to their village in the early years after 1948, when the border was relatively porous, but found a Jewish family living in their house, he said.

Nasser said he would attempt the same journey if the border were not so heavily guarded. “I would run. I’m ready to walk from here to there and sleep under the olive trees on my own land,” he said.

NO END TO WAR The latest war began with Hamas' rampage across southern Israel, through some of the same areas where Palestinians fled from their villages 75 years earlier. Palestinian gunmen killed some 1.200 people that day, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage.

Israel responded with one of the heaviest military onslaughts in recent history, obliterating entire neighborhoods in Gaza and forcing some 80% of the population to flee their homes.

Gaza's Health Ministry says over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN says there is widespread hunger and that northern Gaza is in a “full-blown famine.”

Israel says its goal is to dismantle Hamas and return the estimated 100 hostages, and the remains of more than 30 others, still held by the group after it released most of the rest during a ceasefire last year.

Israeli troops pushed into Rafah last week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has portrayed the city on Gaza's southern border with Egypt as Hamas' last stronghold, promising victory.

But the militants have regrouped elsewhere in Gaza, even in some of the hardest-hit areas, raising the prospect of a prolonged insurgency.

The fighting in Rafah has made the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing — Gaza's main cargo terminal — mostly inaccessible from the Palestinian side. Israel's capture of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt has forced it to shut down and sparked a crisis of relations with the Arab country. Aid groups says the loss of the two crossings has crippled efforts to provide humanitarian aid as needs mount.

In a statement on Tuesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry accused Israel “distorting the facts” and condemned its “desperate attempts” to blame Egypt for the continued closure of the crossing. Egyptian officials have said the Rafah operation threatens the two countries’ decades-old peace treaty.

Shoukry was responding to remarks by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who said there was a “need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Egypt has played a key role in months of mediation efforts aimed at brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the release of hostages. The latest round of talks ended last week without a breakthrough.



What to Know about the Latest Effort to End Türkiye's 40-year Kurdish Conflict

FILED - 02 November 2041, Hesse, Frankfurt_Main: A man displays a flag with the image of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan at the Kurdish Newroz celebration in Frankfurt. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa
FILED - 02 November 2041, Hesse, Frankfurt_Main: A man displays a flag with the image of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan at the Kurdish Newroz celebration in Frankfurt. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa
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What to Know about the Latest Effort to End Türkiye's 40-year Kurdish Conflict

FILED - 02 November 2041, Hesse, Frankfurt_Main: A man displays a flag with the image of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan at the Kurdish Newroz celebration in Frankfurt. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa
FILED - 02 November 2041, Hesse, Frankfurt_Main: A man displays a flag with the image of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan at the Kurdish Newroz celebration in Frankfurt. Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa

A group of 30 Kurdish fighters clad in camouflage fatigues burned their weapons in a large cauldron in northern Iraq on Friday, in a symbolic gesture marking the first concrete step in an effort to end one of the Middle East’s longest-running insurgencies.

The ceremonial laying down of arms by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK -- including 15 women — comes months after the group’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called on it to disarm and disband as part of a new peace effort with Türkiye. Ocalan repeated that call in a video message to his fighters this week.

The process in Türkiye was initiated in October by Devlet Bahceli, a firebrand ultranationalist politician who has usually opposed any concessions to Kurdish identity or rights.

While Turkish officials have welcomed the first step toward the PKK’s disarmament, questions remain about the future of Kurdish fighters in Syria.

What is the PKK? The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has waged an armed insurgency against Türkiye since 1984, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for autonomy and rights for Kurds within Türkiye.

The conflict between militants and state forces, which has spread beyond Türkiye’s borders into Iraq and Syria, has killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered to be a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union.

Who is Ocalan? Abdullah Ocalan, who as a student of political science in Ankara became deeply involved in leftist movements, formed the PKK in 1978 as a Marxist organization. He fled to Syria in 1979, along with other PKK members, where he remained until 1998, when Syria expelled him under intense pressure from Türkiye.

Ocalan was captured in Kenya in 1999 and imprisoned on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara, where he remains to this day. His death sentence for treason was commuted to a life term in prison after Türkiye abolished the death penalty.

The 76-year-old endures as a symbol for Kurdish independence and rights and continues to wield influence over the Kurdish movement, with past messages relayed through family members or lawyers resonating beyond Türkiye, in Iraq and Syria.

Push for peace

In October, Bahceli, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested Ocalan could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands the PKK.

It was a major shift for the hardline politician who had previously strongly supported the state’s military action against the militant group and its affiliates in neighboring Syria and rejected any notion of negotiation.

In a message delivered through senior officials of the pro-Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM, Ocalan called on the PKK leadership to take the decision to disband and disarm in February.

The PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire in March in response to Ocalan’s call and later announced its decision to disarm.

It was not immediately clear what concessions, if any, the Kurdish groups would get in return. PKK officials have said they expect former fighters to be given a path to integrate into the political system in Türkiye.

There are also concerns that some splinter groups may emerge within the PKK and that attacks may continue.

Soon after Bahceli's announcement, the PKK claimed an attack on Türkiye’s key aerospace company outside of Ankara that killed several people.

Previous attempts

There have been several peace efforts between the Turkish state and the PKK over the years, including secret negotiations held in Oslo, Norway from 2009 until 2011. However, none have yielded results.

The last attempt to reach a peace deal took place between 2013 and 2015 with a series of talks between Turkish officials and Ocalan, who declared a ceasefire and withdrew fighters to bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish officials took steps to improve Kurdish rights, including allowing Kurdish-language broadcasts. The process collapsed in July 2015, after a series of violent attacks, including one by the ISIS group that killed 33 pro-Kurdish activists.

Since then, Türkiye has cracked down on its pro-Kurdish movement and has jailed thousands of people, including the former leader of the main pro-Kurdish political party, Selahattin Demirtas, over alleged links to the PKK.

Reshaping the region

The latest peace effort comes at a time when Türkiye and the Kurds are both seeking security to face the challenges in the Middle East.

The renewed peace initiative unfolds amid fundamental changes reshaping the region, including the reconfiguration of power in Syria after the toppling of President Bashar Assad, the weakening of the Hezbollah militant movement in Lebanon, and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Türkiye strongly supports a deal reached between Syria’s new administration and the Kurdish-led and US backed Syrian Democratic Forces under which the SDF forces would merge with the new Syrian national army. The US envoy to Syria told The Associated Press this week that the sides remain at odds over the merger.

Hamish Kinnear, Senior Middle East and North Africa Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said Ocalan’s decision to abandon the armed struggle coincides with a period when the PKK’s leverage is weak due to military setbacks and regional isolation.

“The PKK’s armed struggle was already faltering in the face of advances by Türkiye’s military, while its popularity among its traditional base was in decline,” Kinnear said. ”Ultimately, the peace talks were a useful off ramp in which improvement of Kurdish rights could still be pursued."

However, some believe the main aim of the reconciliation effort is for Erdogan’s government to garner Kurdish support for a new constitution that would allow him to remain in power beyond 2028, when his term ends.

Bahceli has openly called for a new constitution, saying it was essential to keep Erdogan in power for Türkiye’s future. Erdogan and Bahceli are reportedly seeking parliamentary support from the DEM.