Key Historical Events
Introduction
This section offers information about key historical milestones in Palestinian and international history, including the Nakba, the Deir Yassin Massacre, Land Day, the Sabra & Shatila Massacres, 9/11 and "Operation Defensive Shield". For EI features on more recent events arranged chronologically, see Key Events.
The Sabra and Shatila Massacre (16-18 September 1982)
For 40 hours in September 1982, members of the Israeli-allied Lebanese Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed Sabra and Shatila camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.
Land Day (30 March 1976)
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| | "In memory of those who fell on Land Day. They died so that we can live, and their spirit lives on". Text on the memorial site at Sakhnin (Photo: Makbula Nassar, 2003) |
For a quarter of a century, the Palestinian minority in Israel has celebrated Land Day on 30 March 30 as a protest against Israel's discriminatory policies toward its one million Palestinian citizens and to underline its collective and individual rights. Land Day, or Yoam al-'Ard in Arabic, is also a commemoration of the bloody confrontations with state "security" forces that took place in 1976 when six Palestinians were killed and some 100 injured.
Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)
On 9 April 1948, militants of the Irgun and Stern Gang attacked the Palestinian village Deir Yassin. In all over 100 Palestinian men, women and children were systematically murdered. This massacre is often cited as sparking the panic that led Palestinians being driven from their homes. Deir Yassin stands as the starkest early warning of a calculated depopulation of over 400 Palestinian villages and cities and the expulsion of 70 percent of the Palestinian population.
1967 War (5-10 June 1967)
In the early hours of 5 June 1967, Israel attacked Egypt and destroyed nearly its entire air force on the ground. On the Syrian- Israeli border, Israel attempted to evict its inhabitants and provoked a Syrian response. Already preluding the war, on 7 April 1967 the Israeli air force attacked Syria, shooting down six planes, hitting thirty fortified positions and killing about 100 people. By 10 June, Israeli forces captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, along with the Sinai and the Golan Heights. At the end of the war Israel had succeeded in almost doubling the amount of territory it controlled.
Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe (1948)
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| | Baqaa refugee camp (Photo: UNRWA) |
Every year Palestinians commemorate the Nakba ("the catastrophe"): the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. In 1948 more than 60 percent of the total Palestinian population was expelled. More than 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed. To date, Israel has prevented the return of approximately six million Palestinian refugees, who have either been expelled or displaced. Approximately 250,000 internally displaced Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel are prevented from returning to their homes and villages.
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