77 years after the ‘Nakba,’ hundreds of people marched for Palestine this weekend in Los Angeles
LA joined the International Week of Action for Palestine to commemorate the ongoing Nakba
On Saturday, hundreds of people gather at the Israeli Consulate in West Los Angeles at 2 p.m., part of an international week of action to commemorate the ongoing “al-Nakba” — “the catastrophe,” where 77 years ago in 1948, hundreds of Arab Villages were depopulated by the barrel of a gun. Eighty percent of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed out of their homeland and into refugee camps, many of them into the Gaza Strip.
Demonstrations took place across the planet, from Ireland, London, New York, San Francisco, and many other cities in support of the Palestinian people. In the last week, the Israeli government has been bombing refugee camps and the last remaining hospitals.
Many protesters held placards resembling press vests to honor journalists. As of May 14th, one hundred seventy-nine journalists and media workers have been killed by the Israeli military, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In addition, many demonstrators held up poppy flower signs to honor all the martyrs, seeking to highlight the ongoing massacre in all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip.
“If we let the Israeli military get away with the displacement of the Palestinian people, this signals to the people of the world that the empire can do the same anywhere. We must keep fighting,” said Adal Ríos, an organizer with Unión de Barrio.
The program began in front of the consulate with speakers from various grassroots organizations, including the student movement, who read Mahmoud Khalil's letter to the audience movingly. The demonstrators denounced the Trump administration for using repression to slow down the free Palestine movement in all its manifestations, including the encampments, hunger strikes, and protests. In addition, protesters condemned his administration for continuing to send weapons to Israel. Since taking office, Trump has approved nearly $12 billion in weapons to Israel. “The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats,” reads a press statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The Gaza Story: Resistance and Steadfastness
The Gaza Strip is a small, densely populated area with 2.5 million people on the eastern Mediterranean coast. It borders Israeli-occupied territories to the north and east, Egypt to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The strip is approximately twenty-five miles long and six miles wide.
Before October 7th, 2023, the United Nations regarded it as an open-air prison due to its status as one of Earth’s most densely populated areas, with Israel controlling the flow of food and aid entering the strip. For over ten weeks, Israel has blocked humanitarian aid and supplies from entering the Gaza Strip, as reported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) on May 16th.
Nearly seventy-five percent of everyone living in Gaza is a refugee after Israeli forces pushed them out of their homes and villages during the 1948 Nakba, where hundreds of villages were ethnically cleansed, and Israeli militias killed those who wouldn’t leave. Later that year, the United Nations issued Resolution 194, which mandated that 750,000 Palestinians who were made refugees during the Nakba could return to the land after being ethnically cleansed by Israeli forces.
The Israeli government is never held accountable for violating Resolution 194.
In 2018, the United Nations stated that “Gaza may well be unlivable by 2020” because it lacks safe drinking water. After all, Israel has destroyed by bombing all their desalination water plants. Over the past nineteen months, the U.S. has provided Israel military intelligence to operate their genocide, and in 2024 alone, the U.S. government sent Israel $17.9 billion in military financing and weaponry. In contrast, Palestine has no formal army or conventional military.
Israeli Air Forces, with the bombs provided by the U.S., have dropped 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza since October 2023, exceeding that of World War II. In addition, the Gaza Strip is much smaller than Hiroshima but has experienced “the equivalent of two nuclear bombs,” according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
“Israel is only able to get away with the mass murder of Palestinians because of the full economic, political, and material support it gets from the U.S. government,” said Tharwa Khalid, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM).
Israel has bombed at least thirty-six hospitals. More than 80 percent of schools have been attacked, and over 5,479 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, with 756 teachers injured—numbers that are growing each day.
Protests have erupted since October 2023 worldwide after U.S.-made weapons have killed thousands of Palestinians. In addition, Israel has intensified its attacks with the announcement of a new ground offensive on the Gaza Strip. The steadfastness of the Palestinian resistance continues to attack the occupying forces throughout the enclave. Israel published the “Swords of Iron War,” which states they’ve had 856 casualties since October 2023.
Ceasefire talks have been unsuccessful as Israel keeps bombing the Gaza Strip.
Repression breeds resistance
The march proceeded from the Israeli Consulate to the U.S. Federal Building on Wilshire and back, concluding peacefully, except for two Israeli flag-waving agitators whom the organizers effectively subdued within minutes. Guest speakers and organizers made it clear that the U.S. government has the full power to stop the genocide and stop arming Israel, but decides every day not to end the massacres.
It’s been nineteen months since Palestinians in the Gaza Strip broke out of prison in operation “Al-Aqsa Flood,” using bulldozers to break through the Israeli fence that imprisoned 2.3 million people. For the first time, they could break through the wall and step on their ancestral land of historic Palestine.
The Palestinian Youth Movement has been at the forefront of organizing hundreds of marches across the country, demanding that the U.S. government stop arming Israel with bombs that are dropping on civilians, and and end to the occupation.
The PYM will continue organizing marches, educational forums, and teach-ins, as well as producing educational materials to raise awareness about Palestine. Under Trump’s Administration, we are witnessing the continuation of the same imperial policies from his predecessors, and it will continue to be met with resistance here in the belly of the beast.
Photos by Meg Webster:
