London rally commemorates 75th anniversary of Palestinian Nakba

Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters took part in a massive rally in the British capital London on Saturday to mark the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, or Catastrophe, that saw the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Zionist militias in 1948 to enable the creation of Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners calling for an end to apartheid and the Israeli occupation, in a show of solidarity with Palestinians. 

They chanted slogans demanding an end to British support for Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. The crowd marched towards Downing Street, where Number 10, the British prime minister's office, is based.

"The Nakba is my family's story," Leanne Mohamad, a British Palestinian activist told The New Arab.

"My grandparents were forcefully expelled from their home in 1948 by Zionist militias. They were forced to leave Haifa thinking it was only a matter of days, maybe weeks or at most months before they returned," Mohamad said.

"Seventy-five years later today, they are still living in Burj Shemali camp in south Lebanon still awaiting their right of return."

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign which organised the march, said the protest was "to say to the Palestinians 'you are not alone' and to demand an end to all British complicity with the ongoing Nakba".

"The Nakba is not just a moment of historical trauma rooted in the past but is an ongoing process of colonisation, disposition and brutally imposed abrasion," Jamal told The New Arab.

"To our government, our public bodies, our companies, and corporations, without whose complicit support Israel could not sustain its system of apartheid, our message today is: end the Nakba, end apartheid," he added.

Shamiul Joarder, head of public affairs at Friends of Al-Aqsa, highlighted that this year marked 75 years of "displacement, of killings, of apartheid". 

"After 75 years, we are asking of [the British government] to sanction Israel," Joarder told The New Arab, adding that "if any other country violated international law so regularly, we would see them sanctioned."

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign emphasised that the Nakba was not only a historical event but an ongoing process of oppression, characterised by ongoing land colonization, apartheid enforcement, and military occupation over the past 75 years.

"We commemorate the Nakba not only as a historical event but as an ongoing oppression endured over the past 75 years through continuous land colonization, enforcement of apartheid, and military occupation," the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said.

"The Palestinian people require our solidarity now more than ever," it added.