May 15 of each year marks the anniversary of the Nakba for the Palestinians, to “remember the displacement that befell them,” as they put it, when they left their homes in 1948 and settlements were built in their place.
The 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba comes at a time when confrontations between Palestinians and Israelis continue without any actual international solution to end the crisis, with Tel Aviv continuing to expand settlements at the expense of Palestinian towns.
May 15 of each year represents the Nakba anniversary for the Palestinians, to “remember the displacement that befell them,” as they put it, when they left their homes in 1948 and settlements were built in their place.
Until the seventies of the nineteenth century, there was no settlement in Palestine for the Jews, who numbered 26 thousand, and lived in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed, along with a very small group that lived in Haifa and Jaffa.
“Petah Tikva” on the lands of the Palestinian village of Malbes, and “Gai Oni” on the Lebanese border today, were the first two settlements established by the Jews.
And after they established in 1884 a small neighborhood in Jaffa, which they called “Neve Zedek,” and today it is part of Tel Aviv, they established in 1891 the first Jewish neighborhood in Haifa, which they called “Hadar al-Carmel.”
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the number of Jewish settlements in Palestine in 1918 reached 51.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, the settlements began to expand, despite international laws that prevented Tel Aviv from doing so.
The photos in the attached video show a group of settlements since their construction and their development over time.