Palestinians mark 1948 Nakba in anger at Gaza war
STORY: Peace signs and a minute's silence: Palestinians and their supporters around the world commemorated the 1948 "Nakba" or catastrophe on Wednesday (March 15) in the shadow of war in Gaza.
These keys symbolize the homes hundreds of thousands of dispossessed Palestinians lost in the war when Israel was founded.
The Nakba has been a defining experience for Palestinians for more than 75 years, helping to shape their national identity.
Eighty year-old Umm Mohammed survived the original Nakba as a child.
After losing her home in the latest war like nearly all Gazans, she shelters in a tent in the southern city of Rafah, where Israeli tanks are massed on the eastern edges ahead of a feared offensive.
"There is no catastrophe worse than this one. I've been here for about 80 years and a catastrophe like this, I have not seen. Our homes have gone, our children have gone, our property has gone, our gold has gone, our incomes have gone - nothing is left. What is left for us to cry over?"
The seven-month-old Israeli campaign has reduced much of the Gaza Strip to rubble and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Many Gazans fear being driven from the enclave in a second Nakba.
"It's been a Nakba for the past 76 years, it's not new, we have many other catastrophes in villages and the most recent of them is the Nakba we see in Gaza."
The May 15 Nakba day commemoration marks the start of the 1948 war, when neighboring Arab states invaded a day after the Israel declared its independence following the withdrawal of British forces from what was then called Palestine.
The fighting lasted for months and cost thousands of lives.
Descendants of the Palestinians who remained in Israel call for their kin to be allowed to return, something Israel rejects.
Daya Dan, an activist from the Israeli city of Haifa, marched with them.
“I'm here to show solidarity with my Palestinian brothers and sisters and to protest the right to return to their stolen lands.”
Nearly 6 million Palestinians are currently registered as refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, according to the United Nations, in addition to populations scattered across the world.
