FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2025
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“My dreams are very simple. They are not dreams, but simple rights. But they have turned into almost impossible dreams. I dream that my daughter Maria will return to school, Malek to kindergarten, and that my daughter Leen will eat healthy, nutritious food. Food has not been available for 70 days because of the siege. And that I will return to my school, which no longer exists, since the occupation destroyed it.
But we are still strong despite everything… I believe in a future that is better and more beautiful.”
– current resident in Gaza.
Washington, D.C. | When Gaza’s grandparents survived the Palestinian Nakba, they never imagined the Nakba would outlive them. Today, we mark the 77th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba (“The Catastrophe”), the mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes and lands, and the destruction of hundreds of villages to establish the State of Israel.
The mass expulsion and genocide of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 is not a moment but a structure — a persistent system of annihilation. As Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd reminds the word, catastrophe—in all its hierarchical distinctions—marks the Palestinian experience: “if you’re not evicted from your home, it’s demolished; if you’re not imprisoned, you’re shot in the street; if you’re not shot in the street, there’s a drone in your sky in the Gaza Strip; if it’s not a bomb, it’s exile.” A Palestinian refugee living in exile remains acutely aware of their spatial isolation from the land, yet a fire within them continues to burn for truth and justice.
586 days of televised genocide. Scores murdered. A region besieged and plundered. Millions displaced and made refugees again — refusing to abandon a homeland. Today marks the great catastrophe for Palestinians but, also, a recognition of Palestinian sumud. 77 years later, Palestinians continue to resist. Palestinians continue to be an embodiment of hope while the world abandons them. Palestinian refugees continue to demand the right to return to the towns and villages their families were forcibly displaced from in 1948, and call for the full implementation of the “right of return.”
Today, while the world watches the daily assault on Palestinian life across the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and as Israel’s starvation campaign continues to intensify, it is imperative to remember this is the 77th year of Palestinian suffering. For nearly a century, Palestinians have endured, resisted, and survived. They continue to dream of a future rooted in justice, dignity, and liberation.