What is the Nakba and Why is it Commemorated Today?

Today, May 15th 2026 after sharing a meal with another minister friend of mine, she mentioned that she would be going to a Nakba commemoration in a few hours. In my ignorance and curiosity I asked "what is the Nakba?" because I truly did not know what it was. She explained that it was the mass expulsion of the Palestinians by Israeli military from their homeland in the past (later I learned it was in 1948 after the Arab Israeli War). I was already aware of the Israeli military's mass (hundreds of thousands) expulsion of Palestinians and their dislocation in the Gaza Strip after the October 7th terror attack by Hamas (where 1,200 Israelis were killed), which had been classified by UN bodies as a war crime ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/2025/04/gaza-increasing-israeli-evacuation-orders-lead-forcible-transfer.

I decided to go to the commemoration to learn more. The Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) Remembrance Ceremony was sponsored by Combatants for Peace. And though the name of the sponsors is provocative with the word "combatant," I found the sponsors were there for "Peace" and to bring an awareness and understanding of what had happened to the Palestinian people in 1948 and how its effects are still being experienced by the Palestinians today, 78 years later, after they had become refugees in their own land. They were forced to live and are still living in overcrowded refugee camps that started first as tents, then metal shacks, and now buildings with very little access to sewage or light. The presenters of the event were both Palestinians and Israeli voices telling the story of what happened and how it continues to happen today (following is just an example and was not specifically mentioned at the event) mondoweiss.net/2026/05/they-said-find-yourselves-another-home-israeli-soldiers-threaten-residents-of-west-bank-refugee-camps-with-displacement/.

One very eloquent speaker was Mohsen Mahdawi (Palestinian Activist who had been detained by ICE) who spoke about his own trauma living in the refugee camp and how at the age of 10 he watched both his best friend shot and killed and then later his uncle shot dead when he was 15 by Israeli soldiers, and he himself was shot in the leg at the age of 15. He said coming here to the United States began his journey to healing his traumas by talking with Israeli and Palestinian students. His message was not about hatred or retribution, but it was about seeking a way forward by acknowledging what happened in 1948 (not erasing it), reparations, and understanding each other's pain and living together instead of apart. He acknowledged that some people in the audience were Holocaust survivors and that they were survivors of their own trauma and pain, and he ended his message by quoting Anne Frank: "I still believe that people are good at heart."

About the author: Raquel Irizarry has an MSSW from Columbia School of Social Work and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. She is a lay minister with the United Church of Christ, is also a Coordinating Committee Member of the NYC/NYS Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival and one of the Co-Founders of Brooklyn Interfaith.