In May 2023, the world commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Nakba — a campaign of ethnic cleansing that saw at least 750,000 Palestinian people forcibly exiled from their homes and their land by Zionist militias.

Over 450 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed during the Nakba. In the process, Zionist forces committed mass atrocities, including the massacres in Deir Yassin and Tantura. Mass graves continue to be unearthed in Palestine to this day.

Over the course of 1948, about three-quarters of all Palestinians were deprived of their homes, their land, their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives. Those that survived were condemned to live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and countries neighboring Palestine.

The events that took place that year are referred to as the Nakba — the Arabic word for “catastrophe”.

But the Nakba never ended. Since 1948, the people of Palestine have lost more than 85% of their land to the Israeli state in an ongoing process of settler-colonialism and expansion.

Legalized land expropriation, forced evictions and mass demolitions of homes of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Masafer Yatta and the Naqab desert are accompanied by intimidation and harassment by the Israeli army and settlers, making lives for the Palestinian people unbearable.

Settler violence has intensified, with attacks like the recent pogrom in the Palestinian town of Huwara occurring with increasing regularity and with absolute impunity.

These acts of violence find backing in a regime that is now openly fascist. Echoing the policies of erasure pursued by the early architects of Zionism, the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said that “Huwara needs to be erased. And the state should be the one to do that.”

On the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the Progressive International launched an international campaign that unites its membership in standing with the people of Palestine and holding the Israeli regime accountable for its crimes.

Now, as the Nakba reaches a terrifying new phase, we are building an international front to stop genocide in Gaza and support the liberation of Palestine through direct action, mutual aid, diplomatic pressure, legal prosecution, and trade union solidarity.