Today marks the 55th anniversary of the most tragic episode in Palestine’s history, Al- Nakba (The Catastrophe). 55 years ago, Israel forcibly expelled close to 800,000 Palestinian residents from their homes turning the majority of Palestinians into refugees. Today there are close to 5 million Palestinian refugees still waiting to return to their homes as international law and UN resolution guarantees them that right.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948, 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed as their Palestinian inhabitants were driven out against their will. The UN’s recognition of the Jewish state was directly tied with the full implementation of UN resolution 194 granting all Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homes inside what is today known as Israel.

Palestinian eyewitness W. Khaldi describes the scene after the 1948 war: “Hundreds of entire villages had not only been depopulated but obliterated, their houses blown up or bulldozed. While many of the sites are difficult to access, to this day the observant traveler of Israeli roads and highways can see traces of their presence that would escape the notice of the casual passerby: a fenced-in area, often surmounting a gentle hill, of olive and other fruit trees left untended, of cactus hedges and domesticated plants run wild. Now and then a few crumbled houses are left standing, a neglected mosque or church, collapsing walls along the ghost of a village lane, but in the vast majority of cases, all that remains is a scattering of stones and rubble across a forgotten landscape.”

UN resolution 194 proved to be one of so many resolutions which are consciously ignored by Israel while the world under the leadership of America continues to turn a blind eye to Israel’s incompliance with international law. Since 1972, the US has vetoed 35 UN resolutions critical of Israel.

55 years later, Israel’s occupation is more brutal than ever. In the past 30 months Israelis have killed over 2350 Palestinians, 1911 of them innocent civilians. Israel continues to uproot trees and homes creating more Palestinian refugees living in tents throughout the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA reported that there has been close to 13,000 Palestinians left homeless as a result of Israeli wide spread destruction throughout the Palestinian neighborhoods and villages which are militarily occupied by the Israeli troops.

Israel still stands guilty of failing to abide by the rules and principles of international law, namely the implementation of UN Resolutions 242, 181, 338, and most prominently 194. To this day, Israel’s policies continue to violate Palestinian rights, most prominently through its expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, the demolition of Palestinian homes, and its rejection of the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right of return.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of a Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) calls for an end to Israel’s occupation and for the implementation of long ignored resolutions and rights. We urge the international community and all countries of the world to remember this gloomy and deplorable day and to push towards long awaited justice for Palestine and the Palestinian people.