This year marks 78 years since the first Nakba (“catastrophe”). In 1948, 750000 Palestinians were forcibly driven from their homes, in fear of their lives and at gunpoint, during the creation of the occupant state Israel. Every year, on May 15th, we remember. We look also to the years between then and now, as well as shed light on the present, and look to the future. Every person, every home, every tree, every handful of soil, has a story. Of love, loss, hardship, and hope.

You may see people marking today with keys. Myself included. The Right of Return is protected by international law, that sadly was a biased illusion at best, and now is dead and buried underneath the rubble in Gaza. In addition to those who lived it, new generations are now carrying the keys to the lost homes. The commitment and dedication to the land runs deep in every Palestinian. It is not just about the land itself, but belonging, identity, culture, and thirst for the freedom that was stolen from them.

Stealing homes, trees, and the very ground on which you stand, live, and make a living on in a systematic, grand-scale way can be an important part of the agenda and aim to erase a whole people. In this case, it constitutes genocidal intent, along with every other atrocity committed against the Palestinian people. Safety, culture, infrastructure and services that benefit the population such as schools and hospitals, are part of it. This has been confirmed by NGOs, genocide scholars, the UN, the ICJ, and regularly through the words and deeds of the Israeli politicians and people themselves, as well as their US and other allies.

In Gaza, most homes and cities have been levelled completely since Oct 2023. 1, 9 million people at least have been forcibly displaced. Orders to “evacuate” on short notice, and guarantees of the road of escape and the instructed destinations labelled as “safe” and “humanitarian zones/cities”, have been part of it. Leaflets raining across neighbourhoods and cities. Most having already been displaced multiple times. The promises of safety can not be trusted. When nowhere is safe, even aid distribution sites and zones designated as safe, the word “evacuation” loses all meaning. The people are now mostly forced to live under inhumane conditions in tents - if they are lucky enough to afford it. In effect constituting one large open-air concentration camp, where starvation, lack of medical care, regular bombings and shooting despite the sham Schmeasefire, and harsh exposure to the elements is part of life. After already having survived the incredibly traumatising years since Oct 2023, and all the years that went before. The border crossings, including for medical evacuation, controlled by Israel. The message being that if anyone does leave, they will most likely not be allowed back. The US and Israel lobbying in third countries seek to “dump” Palestinians there - which would constitute yet another war crime on the long existing list.

Stealing Palestinian land and homes, uprooting trees, arson, harassment, violence, abductions and murder in the West Bank has been on the rise, too. Worse now than it has been since 1967. just since Jan 2025, at least 40000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been forcibly displaced.

Over 1,3 million people were forced from their homes in Lebanon this Spring (and counting) by Israel, supported by the US. Whole villages eradicated. The agenda of a Greater Israel is plainly stated. And the demolishion of homes is in full action despite a “ceasefire”, new villages getting the flyers and messages to “evacuate”. In Iran, 3 million people suffered the same fate.

Until someone stops them, and their colonial ethnostate expansion project, there will be more Nakbas. Each echoing the first, and the fact that the world allowed it, and continues to allow it. Every people deserve freedom and to live safely on their own land, tending to it in the way they choose (which in zero percent of cases is likely to be building orange chicken style resorts).

The first video is from “Nakba 25”, the 25th ritual performance (September 2025) of the ongoing art/life/project that is Gingerbread for Gaza/Pepperkaker for Palestina. The second is from the 23rd; “DDTTIDF/Humanitarian City” (July 2025). Both rounds were special editions shedding light in particular on the forced displacement/land theft, and the deplorable and inhumane conditions the Palestinian people (and other oppressed peoples) are forced to live under in the time after.