Nakba

[nok-buh, nak-bah]

noun

1. the mass expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians from the partitioned state of Palestine by Jewish militia and Israeli military forces between 1947 and 1949.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Nakba¹

First recorded in 1960–65; from Arabic: literally, “catastrophe, disaster”

Example Sentences

Though I enjoyed an enviable private school education, I didn’t hear the word Nakba until adulthood.

Read more on Salon

A majority of the population of the modern-day Gaza Strip descended from refugees of the Nakba.

Read more on Salon

The event, known as the Nakba, vividly lives on in Palestinian collective memory, and camp residents like Irhil fear the history of displacement -- which many also thought would be temporary in 1948 -- will repeat itself.

Read more on Barron's

That displacement would be on a scale even larger than the Nakba, or mass displacement, that occurred in Palestine during the late 1940s.

Read more on Salon

At the same time, “the catastrophe of the last two years far exceeds that of the Nakba.”

Read more on Salon