Palestinians are marking 76 years of dispossession on May 15, commemorating their mass expulsion from what is today Israel, as a potentially larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza where over a quarter of the population has been displaced by fighting in the last few days alone.
Israel has been pressing its military operations in Rafah, a city along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, and in northern Gaza, where Hamas has regrouped. Around 600,000 Palestinians have been driven out of Rafah since the beginning of last week, a United Nations (UN) spokesperson said on May 15. In northern Gaza, Israeli evacuation orders have displaced at least 100,000 people so far.
Some 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of the war, with many relocating multiple times. No food has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for more than a week. Some 1.1 million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, according to the UN, while a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north of the territory.
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