Seattle Remembers the 78th Anniversary of a Catastrophe in Palestine

By Madeleine Jacobsen

On May 17, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Fisher Pavilion in Seattle to commemorate the 78^th anniversary of an important day in Palestinian history: the Nakba. 

Nakba, an Arabic word for catastrophe, refers to the mass displacement and suffering of Palestinians that resulted from the UN General Assembly’s decision in 1947 to partition Palestine into two states. From 1947 to 1949, between 750,000 to one million Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias and Israel’s army. The Seattle community remembers it through a rally and march to Pike Place Market.

Protesters start their march to Pike Place at the Fisher Pavilion throughout the afternoon of May 17. Participants waved Palestinian, Lebanese, and the Hamas flags alongside banners communicating the urgency of Palestine’s liberation. (Photo by GZR Photography)

Nidal Seattle, the organization that hosted the rally, was first created barely over a year after October 7, 2023, which is commonly mislabeled as the start of the conflicts between Palestine and Israel. The Gaza Mortality Survey, a population-based study published by the Lancet Global Health, estimates 75,200 violent deaths in the Gaza Strip since the date.

Nidal Seattle was established with goals to act and fight for the liberation of Palestine from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea. “October 7’s not the date, it was 1948!” chanted the protest’s participants.

From umbrella painting, I-5 overpass bannering, to football at Greenlake Park, Nidal Seattle regularly hosts events around the city which can align with anyone’s hobbies and their drive to support Palestine. 

Khalid Elassaad spoke on behalf of Tariq Ra’ouf at the beginning rally. 

Khalid Elassaad spoke on behalf of Tariq Ra’ouf at the beginning of the rally at Fisher Pavilion. (Photo by GZR Photography)

“When we drive from North Seattle to South Seattle, we're passing Amazon, Palantir, Google, Microsoft, Boeing. So all of these companies are directly and indirectly responsible for the genocide of Palestinians,” Bissan said, a representative of Nidal Seattle.

In 2024, many mourned the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a West Seattle High School and University of Washington graduate who was murdered by the IDF while protesting against settler expansion in the West Bank. Eygi’s family has repeatedly urged the United States government to investigate her death, but they have yet to do so. 

Jim McMahan, a participant in the protest, recalled how the city has shown their support for Palestine in earlier years. 

“I remember I came to one here way back twenty years ago and they had an exhibition of over 400 Palestinian villages which has been destroyed since 1948,” he said. 

Although the devastating circumstances of Palestine and its contributors are present all around us, events such as the Nakba rally remain prevalent in the Seattle community and are aimed at calling for justice.