Derry bridgil marks 78th Nakba anniversary
‘Our people’s dreams are just to be alive tomorrow morning and to have a small piece of bread in their hand to give it to their children, or to have medicine in the hospital’ - Majida Al-Askari
Palestine flags streamed in the brisk Foyle breeze and bright May sunshine as the Derry Branch of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign marked the 78th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba at its weekly bridgil.
The event took place at Derry’s Peace Bridge on Friday afternoon, chaired by Nuala Crilly.
The Nakba, which started in 1948, was the “expulsion of hundreds of thousands - between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians from their homeland,” said Ms Crilly.
“It was co-ordinated and planned. The build up to that Nakba began in 1917 with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, at which point British colonial powers and other powers were working on getting some kind of set up within the Middle East to protect their own strategic interests,” she added.
“With the end of WWII, it was agreed all Jewish people who had faced pogroms and the Holocaust - the horrific things that happened in WWII - could find sanctuary and safety in what the imperial powers described as ‘a land without people, for people without a land’.
“And in that statement, they made it very clear, even back then, just what their thoughts on the Palestinian people were because the reality is, that that land was already occupied. Palestinians have been living there for generations. Semites from that area, Palestinians represented a variety of religions, Muslims, Christians and Jewish people, and they all lived side by side, in Palestine, until the Western imperial powers started to mess in their country.
“In 1948 the State of Israel was set up and if you look at the maps, from then on, right up to the present day, there were various conflicts and also uprisings, and with each one, Israel started to take more and more of the land that belonged to Palestinians, right up until this current Genocide.
“People talk about October 7 being the starting point, it was never the starting point. The starting point goes back to the start of the Twentieth Century, if not further. In 2023, we have seen the beginning of the latest onslaught. Two days after October 7, the Israelis bombed desalination plants and they bombed the sewage systems in Gaza, a very deliberately manoeuvre to deny people water and to deny them any way to get rid of the sewage,” said Ms Crilly.
“Today we are looking at the outcome of that,” she added, “not only was Gaza razed to the ground, and people put out of their homes, and hospitals bombed, and doctors killed, and universities bombed, and academics killed, and children killed, and shot in the head, they are now living in tents.
“And if that wasn’t bad enough to be living in a tent when the rains came, they were living in tents and possibly cold, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the gates that were supposed to be open from Rafagh in remain shut.
“The aid trucks that were supposed to be coming in have remained shut and kids are waking up now at night screaming in pain because they are getting bitten by the rats that are reaching through all the debris in Gaza.
The Nakba of 1948 was not a one off. The Palestinians are still going through the Nakba, and we stand in solidarity with them today, as a people that also went through colonial oppression and still fighting for our rights,” said Ms Crilly
Buncrana Palestinian Majida Al-Askari also addressed the bridgil. Clearly moved, she said the Genocide was continuing.
“And still people are losing their families, their loves, their houses, their dreams.
“Our people’s dreams are just to be alive tomorrow morning and to have a small piece of bread in their hand to give it to their children, or to have medicine in the hospital.
“It is a dream for them just to be seen as human, and not to be as a number,” said Majida Al-Askari.
Young poet Annie Ward then read her poem Melt Marshmallows, having asked the crowd to cast their minds back “to a time when it wasn’t normal for hospitals to be blown up and babies to be starved”.
In fiery form, Derry activist Eamonn McCann spoke about the recent passing by the Knesset [Israeli Parliament], by 73 votes to nil, of a Bill “which says that Palestinians found guilty of conduct likely to cause death or destruction, will be hanged”.
He added: “But this provision does not apply to anybody else. It doesn’t apply to Israeli Jews.
“This is a scandal before the face of the world that one community can be told if they behave in a way [the authorities] disapprove of, they will be hanged and another community is told, ‘if you behave in a similar way, no problem,” said Mr McCann
The bridgil concluded with Gearalt Ó Mianáin speaking about the GAA’s ‘Drop Allianz’ campaign, before Conor McGoran (guitar) and he (whistle) gave a rendition of ‘The Lonesome Boatman’, which they dedicated to Majida and to Margaret Connolly, the sister of the President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, who is currently part of the Gaza Aid Flotilla.