Nakba facts for kids
The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, al-Nakbah, literally "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs — about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population — fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war.
Between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were sacked during the war, while urban Palestine was almost entirely extinguished. The term "nakba" also refers to the period of war itself and events affecting Palestinians from December 1947 to January 1949.
The precise number of refugees, many of whom settled in refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute but around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel (half of the Arab total of Mandatory Palestine) left or were expelled from their homes. About 250,000–300,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled before the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948, a fact which was named as a casus belli for the entry of the Arab League into the country, sparking the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The status of the refugees, and in particular whether Israel will grant them their claimed right to return to their homes or be compensated, are key issues in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
The events of 1948 are commemorated by Palestinians both in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere on 15 May, a date now known as Nakba Day.
Related pages
Images for kids
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Constantin Zureiq's 1948 book Ma'na al-Nakba, which coined use of the term.
See also
In Spanish: Nakba para niños
