In November 2021, Salman Abu Sitta returned to the Gaza Strip after five decades of forced absence. What he found surprised and inspired him.

From April 1st to May 14, 1948 — before Israel was declared, before the British left, and before any Arab soldier entered Palestine to save it — Zionist militias essentially conquered Palestine. Salman Abu Sitta says this critical period leading to Al Nakba has rarely been looked upon in this light, and shows how massacres that took place during this period were pivotal in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

What happens when a people are confined to a bubble which suddenly bursts and the sun shines on a whole new truth? This is what happened to the kibbutzim in Nirim, Nir Oz, Magen, and Ein Hashloshla when Eitan Bronstein Aparicio recently presented an exhibit of what Palestinian life looked like in the area before the Nakba.

Salman Abu Sitta writes an open letter to Uri Avnery to mark the 70th year of the Nakba: “In all these 70 years, Uri, have you thought of those innocent peaceful people who became refugees, the people you thought they were human dust to be dispensed with? Did you ask: What happened to them and their children, now scattered in the world?”