Naksa

Background

Historian Tom Segev writes that "the hope of moving the Arabs of Palestine to other states had been a constant factor in the Zionist movement", and that "during British rule, Zionist leaders looked into various ways of paying Arabs to move to distant provinces." During the 1948 Palestine war, there were major expulsions of Palestinians, which resulted in ~750,000 Palestinian refugees. Approximately 145,000 of those expelled in 1967 were already refugees from the 1948 displacement. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the West Bank was annexed to Jordan and the Gaza Strip became an unrecognized client state of Egypt known as the All-Palestine Protectorate until its dissolution in 1959.

Six-Day War

Main article: Six-Day War

In April 1967, Israel and Syria engaged in a border skirmish that culminated in the downing of six Syrian MiG fighters near the Golan Heights. Shortly thereafter, after receiving misleading reports about IDF activity on the Israeli-Syrian border from the Soviet Union, Egypt expelled UNEF peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula and later blockaded the Straits of Tiran. Roughly two weeks later, Israel responded with a surprise attack against the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, beginning the Six-Day War. Following Israel's victory in the war, it occupied several territories that had previously belonged to its neighbors under the newly established Israeli Military Governorate.

Naksa

By December 1967, 245,000 had fled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Jordan, 11,000 had fled from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and 116,000 Palestinians and Syrians had fled from the Golan Heights further into Syria. Until 1967, roughly half of all Palestinians still lived within the boundaries of former Mandatory Palestine, but after 1967 the majority lived as refugees in other countries.

The refugee camps of Aqabat Jaber, ʿEin as-Sultan, and Nu‘aymah, whose residents were refugees from the 1948 Palestinian expulsions, were almost entirely emptied, with approximately 50,000 people having fled or been expelled to Jordan.

A United Nations Special Committee heard allegations of the destruction of over 400 Arab villages, but no evidence in corroboration was furnished to the Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the population of the occupied territories. In 1971, this UN committee published a report in which it stated that:

After the IDF's psychological warfare unit made a visit to Qalqilya and many of the residents had fled, the UN representative Nils-Göran Gussing noted that 850 of the town's 2,000 houses were demolished.

Commemoration

Main article: Naksa Day

The Naksa is commemorated annually on Naksa Day, a day of remembrance for the events of the 1967 displacement.

Historiography

Historian Nur Masalha wrote in 2003 that: "In contrast to the large number of books written on the Palestinian refugee exodus of 1948, only meagre historical research has been carried out on the 1967 exodus."

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

References

1. Masalha 2003
2. Tom Segev, ''1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East'' (2007)
3. {{harvnb. McDowall. 1989
4. Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs. (2007-12-13). "Arab-Israeli War of 1967".
5. Bligh, Alexander. (2014). "The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), 1956–67: Past Experience, Current Lessons". Middle Eastern Studies.
6. Barak, Eitan. (2007). "Between Reality and Secrecy: Israel's Freedom of Navigation through the Straits of Tiran, 1956-1967". Middle East Journal.
7. Gat, Moshe. (2004). "On the Use of Air Power and Its Effect on the Outbreak of the Six Day War". The Journal of Military History.
8. Raphaeli, Nimrod. (1969). "Military Government in the Occupied Territories: An Israeli View". Middle East Journal.
9. Mohammed Zaatari. (31 May 2011). "Army may prevent June 5 protesters reaching border fence". The Daily Star.
10. Masalha, N. (2003). The Politics of Denial: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt18dztmq