The 15th of May marks the forced expulsion and displacement of 700,000 thousand Palestinians during the conflict that created the State of Israel in 1948. Since then, al Nakba (The Catastrophe), as it is known in Arabic, has been engraved in Palestinian collective consciousness as a story of relentless dispossession.
We must listen to Palestinian voices and take action
This year, on the 77th anniversary of al Nakba, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
By establishing a system of apartheid, the Israeli authorities continue to deny Palestinian people their human rights. Under apartheid, Palestinian’s face continued forcible displacement. Entire Palestinian communities have been uprooted and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians’ homes have been demolished.
Al Nakba and its legacy
During the 1948 Nakba, more than 530 towns and villages were destroyed, with over 700,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes, villages, and cities. Their homes have either been settled and renamed, or left in ruins. They’ve never received compensation for their losses and have been denied the right to return.
Unfortunately, the atrocities of al Nakba weren’t isolated. Over the decades, Palestinian refugees have faced multiple waves of displacement, with some losing their homes several times. In 1967, some 300,000 Palestinians were displaced following Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories – the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Since then, tens of thousands of others in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) have been made homeless or forcibly displaced again because of Israel’s aggressive land-grabbing and illegal settlement policies, home demolitions and forced evictions.
The collapse of the truce with Israel’s resumption of attacks on 18 March 2025, which have killed at least 2,325 people, including 820 children, shattered any semblance of hope for Palestinians in Gaza. In addition to blocking entry of all aid, Israel’s decision to cut power to Gaza’s main desalination plant on 9 March 2025 has further crippled access to clean water. The plant was the only facility in Gaza reconnected to Israel’s electricity grid in November 2024, after a full electricity blackout had been imposed since 11 October 2023.
Source: Amnesty International
Juliet Lamont on the flotilla …
18 May 2026
“We prepare for interception from the Israeli Occupation Forces tonight. Despite being in international waters and being a non-violent humanitarian mission delivering baby food and medicine to starving and dying Palestinians, we will be met with deadly force. These serial killers must be stopped. Keep eyes on us tonight. Watch the tracker. Demand our safe passage. If we are kidnapped and taken hostage, please take to the streets. Rise up. Now is the time.”
During her report from onboard a submode flatilla boat Juliette railed against Australia’s Prime Ministers complicity in the genocide.
As more reports come through, it is apparent that Israel’s occupation forces are attacking the vessels possibly with ‘psy ops’ in preparation for interception at sea. This may happen in the next 24 hours.
Ian Curr
18 May 2026
Sam Watson is a First-Nations Flotilla Participant from so-called Australia, sailing out of deep solidarity with the Palestinian people and the shared struggle for self-determination.
https://videos.files.wordpress.com/dUwG1Ewx/wp-1778795966033.mp4
“In Queensland, we had an apartheid system where streets, called boundary streets, stopped us from moving after a certain time,” says Sam, who is sailing on the boat Kafr Qasim, named after the Palestinian village where people were massacred by zionist forces during the Nakba because they came home after a curfew that they were unaware of.
As our Flotilla resumes course, Sam has a message for people in Palestine:
“250 years ago the genocide of my people began, and the nation of Australia was built on our nonexistence and our erasure. And that’s what the state of israel is built upon. But after 250 years, my people are still here because we resisted and because of our perseverance & our refusal to be erased. And that is what is going to happen to your people. One day both our lands will be free to determine our own destinies.”