Palestinians fear repeat of 1948 catastrophic exodus
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.
Palestinians refer to it as the Nakba, or “catastrophe." An estimated 7,00,000 Palestinians, a majority of the pre-war population, fled or were expelled from what is now Israel in the months before and during the war, in which Jewish fighters fended off an attack by several Arab states.
The Palestinians packed their belongings, piling into cars, trucks and donkey carts. Many locked their doors and took their keys with them, expecting to return when the war ended.
Seventy-five years later, they have not been allowed back. Emptied towns were renamed, villages were demolished, homes reclaimed by forests in Israeli nature reserves.
Israel refused to allow the Palestinians to return, because it would threaten the Jewish majority within the country's borders. So the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million, settled in camps in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Those camps eventually grew into built-up neighbourhoods.
In Gaza, the vast majority of the population are Palestinian refugees, many of whose relatives fled from the same areas that Hamas attacked last weekend.
The Palestinians insist they have the right to return, something Israel still adamantly rejects. Their fate was among the thorniest issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt more than a decade ago.
Now, Palestinians fear the most painful moment from their history is repeating itself.