“We carry your memory like fire in our veins”: 77th Nakba Day
(*artwork by Incé Husain. “We carry your memory like fire in our veins”)
Whenever someone asked me my name, it was always followed by: “Are you a refugee or a citizen?”
As a child, I would ask: “What is a refugee?”
On this year’s Nakba Day — May 15, 2025 — an Al Jazeera article by Ruwaida Amer in Gaza describes the 1948 displacement of her grandparents from their razed village of Beir Daras to Khan Younis, where she was born in a refugee camp. Her grandfather was fifteen years old during the Nakba, married and with a baby son. The baby — Amer’s uncle — died as they fled. He was just a few months old. Her grandfather could never bring himself to say more.
He would describe the scenes as I sat in awe, asking myself: How could the world have stood by silently?
Nakba Day in Gaza was observed with “laughter and nostalgia”. Palestinians would flock to their elderly to hear stories of their homeland. Life was stable, simple, rhythmic, its remembrance reeling heartbreak.
Whenever I met someone from Beit Daras, we’d share memories, and laugh a lot, talking about the maftoul (Palestinian couscous) the town was famous for.
In the past two years, the Nakba has exceeded the history that has steered Amer’s life. It has become her everyday life. It is the livestreamed genocide that fills phones with starvation, killings, obliterated hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, roads, homes, with deliberateness and no sense of pause. Israeli forces have killed over 61,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
Years from now, will we speak of this Nakba just as we’ve spoken about the original one for 77 years? Will we tell stories, hold commemorations, and hold close memories of the dream of return that has stayed with us since childhood?
***
In London, a Nakba Day rally was held in Victoria Park on May 15. Around 150 protesters chanted and sang. Drums thundered beneath a melodic clanging of pots, pans, spoons.
“What do you call it, when a population is pushed into a walled enclave? Denied food? Denied water, electricity, and then bombed day and night? What do you call it when journalists, aid workers, doctors, are targeted and murdered? What do you call it when international laws are shredded, when children are called “human animals”? When entire families are deliberately erased? You know what we call it? Genocide. We call it ethnic cleansing. We call it apartheid. And we call it by its name — Nakba continued,” Dr. Munir El-Kassem, an imam and community activist, delivered a speech at the rally. “Today, we raise our voices for the seventy-seventh time and louder than ever before, because the Nakba did not end in 1948. It lives in every home demolished in the West Bank, every child starved in Gaza, every olive tree burned in Jerusalem, every refugee who still carries the key to a home they’ve never seen. But let me tell you something else, and I want every child here to hear this: the Nakba also lives in resistance, it lives in the sumud - the steadfastness of Palestinians. It lives in the songs of the Dabke dancers, it lives in the tears of grandmothers who still say ‘one day, we will return.’ My grandmother used to say it sixty years ago, and to her in her grave, I want to send a message: we will return.”
To the renewed rhythms of drums, the protesters chanted “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!” A bluejay called loudly through the rally’s rush.
“This chant is not about hatred, it is about liberation, it is about justice, it is about a future where no child is born under occupation, where no mother has to bury her baby beneath the rubble,” said El-Kassem. “We do not call today for a ceasefire. We call for justice. We call for liberation. We call for the end of occupation. We call for the right of return. And we call for a world where Palestinian children can breathe like any other child. When Palestine is free, the whole world will breathe a little deeper. Because when apartheid ends in Palestine, it inspires freedom everywhere. So let me end with this: to our children of Gaza, we are seeing you. You are not alone. To the mothers of Palestine: we hear your cries. They will echo through history. To every martyr of the Nakba and every martyr since then: we carry your memory like fire in our veins. And to the world: you may try to erase us, you may bomb our cities, you may starve our people, you may ban our flags, but you will never erase the spirit of Palestine. You will never kill hope. From the ashes of the Nakba, we rise from the rubble of Gaza.”
Western University linguistics professor David Heap told the protesters about Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla boat carrying humanitarian aid. Filled with over a dozen international volunteers, the boat sailed to Gaza to protest the Israeli sea blockade and its violation of freedom of movement. On May 2, off the coast of Malta, Conscience was attacked by drone strikes. The first strike cut off electricity. The second struck the front of the ship. The third erupted in a large fire. The crew sent a distress signal. A firefighter support vessel arrived, smoke rising from Conscience’s bow.
“The [Israeli] terrorist state has no shame even in European waters,” said Heap. He shared a petition addressed to the United Nations that calls for an independent investigation into the attacks and an end to the Israeli occupation.
On May 15, it was announced that another Freedom Flotilla boat will be sailing from another Western European port. A press release reads:
In the face of state terrorism, media silence, and mounting global complicity, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) today announces that its mission to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza will move forward, undeterred.
The ship is named Madleen in honour of Madleen Kolab; in 2014, Kolab was the only fisherwoman in Gaza at nineteen years old. An article by Charlie Andreasson describes Kolab’s fierce spirit:
When she was six years old, she already accompanied her father when he was fishing, and she knew early what her coming profession would be. She loves her work. It gives her a sense of freedom to be on the sea, and she was careful to point out that nobody forced her to become a fisherman. Her rapt answers to my questions, that she never needed any consideration, unwavering eyes and lack of hesitation left no doubt or room for me to think otherwise.
Israeli patrol boats had attacked Kolab, threatening her small open boat back to shore. Bullets had flanked her as she fished. In Gaza, Palestinians cannot fish freely in their own waters. Kolab would not dream of leaving.
But what would she do if there was no blockade? Would she leave Gaza? Madleen did not hesitate. She would stay. Palestine is her home. But she would fish further out, away from the overfished and shallow waters. And she wished that global society could make Israel stop the illegal and inhumane blockade, wrote Andreasson. I think I will see her again, standing there at the edge of the port. And it strikes me that I never asked that question, what she thinks about when she gazes towards the horizon.
Heap said that Kolab and her family have now been displaced to Rafah. She had given birth to a child, back in Gaza city where her port used to be.
The siege on Gaza is protected not just by Israeli firepower, but by global inaction, reads the press release by FFC. Despite the risks, we believe that direct, civil resistance still matters – that active solidarity can shift the moral compass of the world. That is why Madleen will sail.
Heap urged all to push for an end to the illegal Israeli blockade and for an arms embargo on Israel.
“We must shut down the war industry. Canada’s government is buying drones from the country that drones humanitarian ships in the Mediterranean,” said Heap. “We will end the complicity of a government that talks about human rights but continues to export artillery propellant that is used to maim and kill the children and mothers and fathers and families in Gaza. Shame!”
“SHAME!” the protesters echoed.
Ilana Guslits, a member of Independent Jewish Voices London, shared that Jews around the world are currently engaging in Counting of the Omer, a religious tradition that counts the 49 days between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot.
Nakba Day is the 33rd day.
“I think about what else we could count today. Today we join in mourning seventy-seven years of ongoing Nakba, which never ended. Seventy-three days of no food, no medicine, and no aid entering Gaza,” said Guslits. “I think about the twisted fact that while we're counting the Omer, which is an ancient Arabic measurement for a chaff of grain, no grain can be found in Gaza. According to Jewish law, if a person is hungry, one must feed them… And a rogue genocidal state claims to be starving and bombing Palestinians to death in the name of Judaism. I can’t even count, anymore, how often IJV and our friends at Jewish Voices for Peace have called out “not in my name!” We will keep standing up for Palestine until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.”
“Free, free Palestine!” The protesters chanted to the drums and clanging cutlery. “Free, free Palestine!” ♦
Written using files received from a protester at the Nakba Day rally.