Palestine · A closer look
1948
The Nakba
Between late 1947 and 1949, more than 700,000 Palestinians, over half of the Arab population, fled or were driven from their homes. More than 400 villages were emptied and most were later demolished. Massacres such as Deir Yassin, on 9 April, spread the flight. Israel declared its independence on 14 May. Palestinians call it al-Nakba, the catastrophe. Families took their house keys with them, expecting to be back within weeks.
A catastrophe across many places
Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe, describes the mass displacement and loss of Palestinian homes and communities surrounding the 1948 war. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. It was not a single event on a single day: experiences differed between towns and villages and across successive phases of fighting. The loss included livelihoods and social networks as well as buildings and land.
Displacement that became prolonged
People sought safety in neighbouring parts of Palestine and in surrounding Arab countries. Emergency shelter and relief addressed immediate needs, but did not resolve whether or how refugees could return. The United Nations created institutions to respond to this displacement, eventually including UNRWA. The duration of the refugee crisis is central to the meaning of the Nakba: a flight initially experienced as temporary became an enduring condition for many families.
The map after the war
By the end of the war, Israel controlled more territory than the partition plan had allocated to a Jewish state. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, came under Jordanian control, and Gaza under Egyptian administration. No Palestinian Arab state emerged. The armistice arrangements ended a phase of warfare without resolving the refugees' future or the competing national claims. Those unsettled questions shaped the decades that followed.