Agencies-Gaza post
Today marks the Naksa, or setback, of 1967
On this day in 1967, the occupying state of Israel established pre-emptive aggression on Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. After striking the air defenses of these governments, Israel seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and Egypt’s the Sinai Peninsula.
Twenty years after being identified as an independent state after the destruction of historic Palestine, Israel started an occupation that would evolve the longest in modern history. As such, Israel took control of the final 22 percent of historic Palestine that it wasn’t able to colonize in 1948.
The word ‘Naksa,’ or the ‘setback,’ guides to the start of the 1967 Six-Day War on June 5, which saw Israel triple in size starting over 55 years of occupation.
About 400 thousand Palestinians were expelled by the Israeli attack adding to the hundreds of thousands of refugees expelled in 1948 by the invading pre-Israel militias. Almost half were being displaced for the second time in less than 20 years.
The numeral of Palestinian refugees in the camps run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon even increased further.
The aggression saw Israel violate the earlier decided upon Green Line borders drawn up in the 1949 armistice with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, which separated the newly established Israel from the Palestinian areas of the Jordanian-administered West Bank and Jerusalem and the Egypt-administered Gaza.
Following the onslaught, facilitated with the strong support of the United States, Israel imposed a military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and annexed East Jerusalem which is going on until today.
Palestinians in the “occupied Palestinian territories” have since been targeted by a brutal Israeli military occupation as well as the activities of armed, right-wing Jewish settlers, for whom Israel’s victory was a request to colonize the land which they believed was promised to them by God and them alone.
In 2005, Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza as part of a unilateral disengagement plan under late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Despite many UN solutions calling for its withdrawal from these territories, Israel still occupies all of the territories excluding the Sinai Peninsula. Israel was removed from this territory in 1982, following a peace accord with Egypt.
source: Wafa
