Burak Bir
15 May 2024•Update: 15 May 2024
LONDON
Marking the Palestinian Nakba Day, Amnesty International said Wednesday that mass forced displacement in the Gaza Strip highlights the urgent need for Israel to uphold Palestinians' right to return.
"Generations of Palestinians across the occupied territories are deeply scarred by the trauma of being uprooted and dispossessed multiple times and with no prospect of return to their homes," Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
The statement marks the 76th anniversary of Nakba, or Catastrophe, when tens of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands in 1948 to make way for the creation of Israel.
Touching on the current situation in Gaza where some 2 million Palestinians have been displaced, Rosas stated that it is "utterly harrowing" to see the scenes of the 1948 Nakba repeat themselves in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
"This Nakba day the fate of Palestinians is more perilous than ever – dispossessed and subjected to systematic human rights violations under a brutal occupation – with those in Gaza also facing the imminent risk of genocide," she noted.
Rosas added: "Israel’s decades-long denial of the Palestinians’ right to return is one of the root causes of the conflict, and the escalation in violence of the past seven months shows that it must no longer be overlooked."
Touching on pressures on pro-Palestine campaigns and demonstrations, the group said that the "instrumentalization of antisemitism" to discredit protesters or criminalize criticism of Israel’s policies, and the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel’s violations of international law are "particularly problematic."
Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 people.
More than 35,100 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, and over 79,000 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.
In the West Bank, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured since Oct. 7, along with daily arrest campaigns by the Israeli army.
Israel is accused of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
