Why the mass killings and exodus of Gazans from the North to the South is being called the second Nakba

On Wednesday, Motaz Azaiza, one of the journalists sharing details of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, shared a picture of Gazans walking on a highway in a long line. “People evacuating the city to the south of the strip. It’s literally a new Nakba.”

Nakba is the most momentous event in all of Palestinian history, especially the history of the last century with Israelis. It literally means “catastrophe” and refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israelis in 1948. It has been 75 years now that zionist forces took 78 percent of the historic land of Palestine and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of 70 massacres. 7,50,000 Palestinians out of 1.9 million were made refugees in their own land as Israel established a Jewish majority state, fulfilling their Zionist motives.

The official commemoration of this expulsion and ethnic cleansing by Palestinians around the world was done on May 15, 1948, but the facts reveal more than half of the displacement was already done by then.

Since then, there have been many Arab-Israeli wars and many attempts to displace Palestinians. Israel, originally given 55 percent of the land by the UN, now owns 85 percent of it. However, it openly wishes to have control over all of it. In his address to the UN in September, Benjamin Netanyahu displayed two maps that showed the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as part of Israel. The repeated calls to move to the South after October 7, is actually more than revenge.

In one of the videos posted by Motaz, it can be seen that tens of thousands of Palestinians are moving to the South- in front of the Israeli army- raising their hands to show that they are unarmed. In a number of incidents, these caravans have been bombed too.

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A post shared by Motaz Azaiza مُعْتَز عزايزة ⚡️ (@motaz_azaiza)

This has been confirmed as the Israeli government claims that some 50,000 people have fled Northern Gaza to the South.

On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are not obeying these orders because they believe there is no place safe from Israel’s bombings and that they would rather die at home.

Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abu Artema in his message to The News International has already called for the world to take action as he firmly thinks “This is the second Nakba”.