Gaza: the record ·
The Nakba: why most people in Gaza are refugees
In 1948, around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the creation of Israel. Their descendants make up most of Gaza's population, and they have never been allowed to return.
1948
Palestinians call it the Nakba, "the catastrophe". During the war of 1947 to 1949, around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their towns and villages. Hundreds of villages were depopulated and destroyed, and the refugees were not allowed to return.
Gaza, a land of refugees
Many of them ended up in the Gaza Strip. Today about seven in ten of Gaza's people are refugees or their descendants, living in camps such as Jabalia, Shati (Beach camp), Nuseirat and Rafah, which were among the places hit hardest in the current war.
The right of return
UN General Assembly Resolution 194, adopted in December 1948, says refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so. Israel has never allowed it.
A Nakba that never ended
Many Palestinians and historians describe the displacement of Gaza's population since 2023, and the expulsions in the West Bank, as a continuation of the Nakba.
Watch NAZA
NAZA is Israeli military slang for collateral damage: the number of civilians an officer is allowed to kill in a strike. In this documentary, 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, many from the army's most prestigious units, explain how that number was set, approved and exceeded in Gaza. What they describe is not a tragic accident of war but a system: targets tracked to their family homes, families watched for days, strikes approved knowing children were inside.
In cinemas now, and free worldwide on theguardian.com after the cinema run.
