JERUSALEM: Palestinians on Wednesday will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. But in many ways, that experience pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza.
Palestinians refer to it as the “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe.” Some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar population — fled or were driven from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment.
After the war, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some 6 million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population.
Israel’s rejection of what Palestinians say is their right of return has been a core grievance in the conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last collapsed 15 years ago. The refugee camps have always been the main bastions of Palestinian militancy.
Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale.
All across Gaza, Palestinians in recent days have been loading up cars and donkey carts or setting out on foot to already overcrowded tent camps as Israel expands its offensive. The images from several rounds of mass evacuations throughout the seven-month war are strikingly similar to black-and-white photographs from 1948.
Mustafa Al-Gazzar, now 81, still recalls his family’s monthslong flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah, when he was 5. At one point they were bombed from the air, at another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.
Al-Gazzar, now a great-grandfather, was forced to flee again over the weekend, this time to a tent in Muwasi, a barren coastal area where some 450,000 Palestinians live in a squalid camp. He says the conditions are worse than in 1948, when the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was able to regularly provide food and other essentials.
“My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive,” he said. “I live in such fear,” he added, breaking into tears. “I cannot provide for my children and grandchildren.”
The war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, making it by far the deadliest round of fighting in the history of the conflict. The initial Hamas attack killed some 1,200 Israelis.
The war has forced some 1.7 million Palestinians — around three quarters of the territory’s population — to flee their homes, often multiple times. That is well over twice the number that fled before and during the 1948 war.
Israel has sealed its border. Egypt has only allowed a small number of Palestinians to leave, in part because it fears a mass influx of Palestinians could generate another long-term refugee crisis.
The international community is strongly opposed to any mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza — an idea embraced by far-right members of the Israeli government, who refer to it as “voluntary emigration.”
Israel has long called for the refugees of 1948 to be absorbed into host countries, saying that calls for their return are unrealistic and would endanger its existence as a Jewish-majority state. It points to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries during the turmoil following its establishment, though few of them want to return.
Even if Palestinians are not expelled from Gaza en masse, many fear that they will never be able to return to their homes or that the destruction wreaked on the territory will make it impossible to live there. A recent UN estimate said it would take until 2040 to rebuild destroyed homes.
The Jewish militias in the 1948 war with the armies of neighboring Arab nations were mainly armed with lighter weapons like rifles, machine guns and mortars. Hundreds of depopulated Palestinian villages were demolished after the war, while Israelis moved into Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other cities.
In Gaza, Israel has unleashed one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, at times dropping 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs on dense, residential areas. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to wastelands of rubble and plowed-up roads, many littered with unexploded bombs.
The World Bank estimates that $18.5 billion in damage has been inflicted on Gaza, roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of the entire Palestinian territories in 2022. And that was in January, in the early days of Israel’s devastating ground operations in Khan Younis and before it went into Rafah.
Even before the war, many Palestinians spoke of an ongoing Nakba, in which Israel gradually forces them out of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it captured during the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a future state. They point to home demolitions, settlement construction and other discriminatory policies that long predate the war, and which major rights groups say amount to apartheid, allegations Israel denies.
Nakba: Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza
https://arab.news/gth7u
Nakba: Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza
- In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population
- Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale
Canada eases sanctions on Syrian Arab Republic, names ambassador
- Easing of sanctions would help prevent Syria from falling into chaos and instability, said Canada’s special envoy Omar Alghabra
- Liberated from the Assad regime last December after 13 years of war, Syria is now led by former rebel leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa
OTTAWA: Canada announced plans Wednesday to ease its financial sanctions against Syria and to appoint an ambassador, as the Damascus interim government seeks international support.
Canada’s special envoy for Syria, Omar Alghabra, said: “Canada can play a meaningful role in enabling Syrians to build an inclusive country that respects all of its citizens.
“We also can help prevent Syria from falling into chaos and instability.”
A statement from Canada’s foreign ministry said sanctions would be eased “to allow funds to be sent through certain banks in the country, such as Syria’s Central Bank.”
Canada’s ambassador to Lebanon, Stefanie McCollum, will now take on a parallel role as a non-resident ambassador to neighboring Syria.
Previously, Canada — along with many other world powers — had strict sanctions in place to punish the now-ousted government of Bashar Assad.
“These sanctions had been used as a tool against the Assad regime and easing them will help to enable the stable and sustainable delivery of aid, support local redevelopment efforts, and contribute to a swift recovery for Syria,” the Canadian statement said.
Assad fled Syria late last year and opposition forces overthrew his administration in early December. An interim government under former jihadist leader President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is now in place.
Many capitals welcomed Assad’s fall, but gave only a cautious welcome to the victorious rebels.
Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
The new government has vowed to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, but security forces have reportedly killed hundreds of Alawite civilians in recent days.
In the statement announcing sanctions relief, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joy and Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen expressed concern over the killings.
“We utterly condemn these atrocities and call on the interim authorities to take all necessary measures to end the violence,” they said.
“Civilians must be protected, the dignity and human rights of all religious and ethnic groups must be upheld, and perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Syria’s interim President Sharaa forms national security council
CAIRO: Syrian Arab Republic’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa issued a decree on Wednesday to form the country’s national security council, according to a statement by the Syrian president’s office.
The council will take decisions related to the country’s national security and challenges facing the state.
‘Nobody is expelling any Palestinians’ from Gaza, says US President Trump
- Comment seems to contradict his previous plan for the US to take over the territory, relocate the Palestinian population and turn it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’
- Arab foreign ministers say they will continue to consult with Trump’s Middle East envoy about a $53bn Egyptian plan to rebuild Gaza
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday that “nobody is expelling any Palestinians” from Gaza.
His comment, in response to a question from a reporter, came during a meeting on Wednesday with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin at the White House.
It seemed to contradict the president’s previously suggested plan for the US to take ownership of Gaza, relocate the Palestinian population, and turn the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
His proposal, voiced in February during the early stages of a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, drew widespread international condemnation and rejection, amid concern that it reinforced long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.
Egypt, Jordan and Gulf Arab states warned that any such plan could destabilize the entire region. In response, Arab states adopted a $53 billion Egyptian plan for the reconstruction of Gaza that would avoid any displacement of Palestinians.
Arab foreign ministers said on Wednesday they would continue to consult with Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, about the Egyptian plan to rebuild Gaza as an alternative to the US president’s proposed takeover of the territory.
“The Arab foreign ministers discussed the Gaza reconstruction plan, which was approved during the Arab League Summit held in Cairo on March 4, 2025. They also agreed with the US envoy to continue consultations and coordination on the plan as a foundation for the reconstruction efforts,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The talks will serve as a “basis for the reconstruction efforts” in Gaza, the ministers said in a joint statement following a meeting in Doha.
‘Humiliated’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN
- Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention
GENEVA: Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week.
“I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital where he worked.
Ahead of the hearings Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva dismissed them as a waste of time, saying Israel investigated and prosecuted any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces.
Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video-link to a public hearing, speaking through an interpreter.
He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.
“I was like a punching bag,” he said of one particularly harrowing interrogation he endured in January 2024.
The interrogator, he said, “kept hitting me on my genitals... I was bleeding everywhere, I was bleeding from my penis, I was bleeding from my anus.”
“I felt like my soul (left) my body.”
Fattah spoke Tuesday during the latest of a series of public hearings hosted by the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
This week’s hearings, harshly criticized by Israel, are specifically focused on allegations of “sexual and reproductive violence” committed by Israeli security forces and settlers.
“It’s important,” COI member Chris Sidoti, who hosted the meeting, told AFP. Victims of such abuse are “entitled to be heard,” he said.
Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention, but also at checkpoints and other settings since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
Meron, for Israel, slammed attempts to equate allegations against individual Israelis with Hamas’s “shocking... sexual violence toward Israeli hostages, toward victims on October 7.”
Any such comparison was “reprehensible,” he told reporters on Monday.
He insisted the hearings were “wasting time,” since Israel as “a country with law and order” would investigate and prosecute any wrongdoings.
But Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis decried a glaring lack of accountability, alleging that abuse had become “a widespread policy.”
All those arrested from Gaza were strip-searched, she said, with the soldiers in some cases “pushing the sticks” into the prisoner’s anus.
Sexual abuse happened “in a very massive way” especially in the first months of the war, she said.
“I think you can say that most of those who were arrested in these months were subjected to such practice.”
The allegations of abuse are not limited to detention centers.
Mohamed Matar, a West Bank resident, said he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers, even as Israeli police refused to intervene.
Just days after the October 7 attack, he and other Palestinian activists went to help protect a Bedouin community facing settler attacks.
As they were leaving the compound, they were chased and caught by a group of settlers, who he said were joined by members of Israel’s Shabak security agency.
He and two other men were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear and, had their hands tied before being taken into a nearby stable.
The leader stood “on my head and ordered me to eat ... the faeces of the sheep,” said Matar.
With dozens of settlers around, the man urinated on the three, and beat them so badly during the nearly 12 hours of abuse that Matar said he cried: “just shoot me in the head.”
The man, he said, jumped on his back and repeatedly “tried to introduce a stick into my anus.”
Blinking back tears, Matar showed Sidoti a photograph taken by the settlers showing the three blindfolded men lying in the dirt in their underwear.
Other pictures taken after the ordeal showed him with massive bruises all over his body.
Speaking to journalists after his testimony, he said he had spent months “in a state of psychological shock.”
“I didn’t think there were people on Earth with such a level of ugliness, sadism and cruelty.”
Financial reform plan can unlock foreign support for Lebanon, IMF says
- Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery
- Follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt
BEIRUT: A unified financial reform plan will allow Lebanon to overcome its economic issues and unlock foreign funding, the head of the IMF’s mission to the country said on Wednesday.
Ernesto Ramirez Rigo was speaking in a meeting with President Joseph Aoun, who said that Lebanon was “committed to moving forward with implementing reforms.”
Negotiations between Lebanon and the IMF aim to pave the way for essential reforms to put the country on the path to financial recovery.
It follows worsening financial and economic crises that Lebanon has been grappling with since 2019 due to economic mismanagement, rampant corruption and accumulated debt.
Presidential media adviser Najat Charafeddine told Arab News: “The IMF delegation emphasized that Lebanon’s proposed plan must be approved by all relevant parties in order to pass in parliament.
Implementing reforms will enable Lebanon to receive aid, including grants, particularly from countries with close ties, the delegation said.
“Achieving the plan will serve as an IMF seal of approval that will unlock assistance,” Lebanese officials were told.
The delegation also highlighted “the necessity of Lebanon returning to the fundamentals, particularly in restructuring banks and revisiting banking secrecy laws, which have yet to see the light of day due to disagreements.”
Over the past two days, specialized technical meetings have continued between experts from the IMF and a World Bank delegation, along with directors of departments and specialized experts at the Lebanese Ministry of Finance.
The talks aimed “to reach conclusions on proposed issues to promote transparency in public finances and more comprehensive reforms,” a Ministry of Finance statement said.
The IMF delegation met Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Finance Minister Yassine Jaber to discuss the details of the economic plan and required reforms.
Jaber said he discussed “the priorities, namely the appointment of the governor of Banque du Liban, who will play a crucial role in working with the IMF.
“Preparations for reforms are ongoing to enable Lebanon to implement its financial plan,” he added, highlighting support for amending Lebanon’s Monetary and Credit Law.
Jaber said: “The issue of frozen deposits in banks will be addressed in stages, and as minister of finance, I have no authority over the banking sector.”
Ousmane Dione, World Bank VP for the Middle East and North Africa, who met Jaber in Beirut in late February, had previously called on the Lebanese government to implement reforms.
This would “ensure credibility and transparency, reassure investors and improve the business environment,” he said.
The IMF delegation will meet a technical committee at the Association of Banks on Thursday.
According to media reports, the meeting will focus on “the performance of the exchange market and the Banque du Liban’s interventions, the banking restrictions on transfers and the authorization of certain outgoing transfers.
“This is seen as an attempt to monitor Lebanon’s cash economy, which has flourished since the country’s financial collapse.”
Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure exerted by Lebanon on the five-member committee overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel led to the release of four captives held by the latter on Tuesday evening.
The development was welcomed by Hezbollah supporters.
Israel is set to release a fifth person, a Lebanese soldier, on Wednesday evening, after he underwent surgery in an Israeli hospital.
It follows the release of four Lebanese captives a day earlier.
On social media, activists supporting Hezbollah celebrated the release of prisoners held by Israel for three months as a result of “diplomatic, not military, efforts.”
One activist claimed that President Joseph Aoun “had achieved what 100,000 rockets failed to accomplish,” while another said: “Diplomacy succeeded in releasing five prisoners, and tomorrow it could resolve the issues surrounding the disputed border points.”
Axios quoted a US official on Tuesday: “The Trump administration had been mediating between Israel and Lebanon for several weeks with the aim of strengthening the ceasefire and reaching a broader agreement.
“All parties are committed to upholding the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon and fulfilling all its conditions. We look forward to convening swift meetings of the working groups regarding Lebanon to address the outstanding issues. Israel and Lebanon have agreed to initiate negotiations to resolve disputes concerning their land borders.”
Six of 13 points remain unresolved since the establishment of the Blue Line following Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.
Additionally, Israel has yet to withdraw from five Lebanese hills it occupies in the border area following the recent conflict.
Reporters in the south have said that the Israeli army has expanded its presence around the hills, where it has established military facilities.
A joint statement issued by the US and French embassies in Lebanon and UNIFIL on Tuesday said: “The ceasefire implementation mechanism committee will continue to hold regular meetings to ensure full implementation of the cessation of hostilities.”
Israeli Channel 12 quoted an Israeli politician as saying: “Discussions with Lebanon are part of a broader and comprehensive plan. Israel aims to achieve normalization with Lebanon.
“The prime minister’s policy has already transformed the Middle East, and we wish to maintain this momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon.
“Just as Lebanon has claims regarding the borders, we also have our own border claims ... we will address these matters.”
