Palestinians fear the most painful moment in their history is repeating itself as Israel seeks mass displacement of more than 1.1 million Gaza residents amid its aerial and land bombardment on the besieged enclave.
In Israel's call for the evacuation of half of Gaza's population, many Palestinians fear a repeat of the most traumatic event in their tortured history, their mass exodus from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.An estimated 700,000 Palestinians, a majority of the prewar population, fled or were expelled from what is now Israel in the months before and during the war, in which Jewish groups fended off an attack by several Arab states.
So, the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million, settled in camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.In Gaza, the vast majority of the population are Palestinian refugees, many of whose relatives fled from the same areas that Hamas struck last weekend.Their fate was among the thorniest issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt more than a decade ago.
Israel has launched blistering waves of air strikes on besieged Gaza that have already killed over 1,900 Palestinians, and the war appears set to escalate further. Israel's far-right government has empowered extremists who support the idea of deporting Palestinians, and in the wake of the fight, some have openly called for mass expulsion."Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!" Ariel Kallner, a member of parliament from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, wrote on social media.
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