"I visited almost 200 locations. It was never intended to be a project — it was a journey to educate myself and to witness the Palestinian loss of 1948." A Palestinian photographer’s ‘search for what remained’ from 1948 When Nablus-based journalist Ahmad Al-Bazz received an Israeli travel permit, he rushed to visit nearly 200 villages depopulated in the Nakba. Five years later, his new book offers a powerful visual archive of erasure.

Ahmad Al-Bazz | The Erasure of Palestine

How did the experience of documenting these depopulated villages shape the way you perceived and moved through the 1948 territories?

Once you cross the wall, everything feels very foreign. I knew that I was still in Palestine — I’m just crossing a wall that divides it — but what I saw on the ground felt very different from what I was used to. It looked Western, but not like any specific place. You might be standing in front of a very Western-looking city, yet know that it was built over a Palestinian one — like Tel Aviv, which was built on part of Al-Manshiyya and a few other villages. As a photographer, that pushed me to search for what remained and to photograph it. In that sense, the act felt like a form of visual decolonization.

It was also a weird feeling because you are suddenly among the settler community. They don’t know that you’re Palestinian, and you never feel completely okay about it. Yet architecture photography helped me connect with these sites. That was also the visual style of the book: you see the Palestinian layer and the Israeli layer in the background, and I wanted to show the contrast between the two.

As you said, many of your photographs show how closely these depopulated Palestinian villages lie beside new Israeli construction, fenced off with vegetation growing over and obscuring them. What did the condition of these villages tell you about Israeli society?

Palestinian sites take different forms today. Some are destroyed, completely erased, or reduced to rubble, sometimes in nature in the middle of nowhere. In other places, surviving structures are scattered between Israeli houses, as in Haifa, or in Ijzim [now the Israeli moshav Kerem Maharal) and Ein Hod, where wealthy Palestinian houses are inhabited by Israelis. Some sites are abandoned, while others are reused in strange ways: a Palestinian school may become an Israeli school, as in Al-Tira, or a mosque may be turned into an animal shelter, as in Kawfakha. 

https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-destroyed-villages-nakba-photography/ 

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‘Go inside, he will kill you’: Israeli militants step up West Bank school attacks. Education is being targeted across Palestine, with the murder of 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan only the latest in a spree of violence

Footage from inside the Mughayyir school shows terrified children and teachers crouched in stairwells.

Emma Graham-Harrison, Sufian Taha and Quique Kierszenbaum in Mughayyir

Sat 2 May 2026

The Israeli reservist shot 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan in the head just outside the western gate of the Mughayyir boys’ secondary school, where he was studying in ninth grade.

Aws collapsed instantly, bleeding heavily. More shots rang out as his friends ran to his side, picked up his now-limp body and rushed him out of the line of fire, their path along the school wall marked by a trail of their classmate’s blood.

Footage from inside the building showed terrified children and teachers crouched in stairwells, shouting at others to get down. Another video captured the shooter, a reservist in partial military uniform, taking aim at the school from the hillside above.

A few minutes later the same man killed the younger brother of an English teacher Waheed Abu Naim, whose family live beside the school. Jihad Abu Naim was 36; his wife is heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child, a girl due this month.

Aws and Abu Naim were shot dead on 21 April amid a wave of settler violence in the occupied West Bank, much of which has targeted schools and students in the territory.

Mughayyir, a village of about 3,000 people nestled in the rolling hills north-east of Ramallah, has been targeted for many years. Aws’s father, Hamdi al-Naasan, was killed in January 2019, shot in the back by a settler as he tried to rescue an injured neighbour.

Aws was only in third grade at the time, and his teachers devoted extra attention to the young boy in the years that followed. “We tried to make Aws feel safe, and ensure he had some rules in his life, to protect him from the impact of losing his father,” said Waheed Abu Naim. “Then we lost him.”

After the killings, classes in Mughayyir were suspended for a week as parents and teachers weighed up hopes for their children’s futures against immediate fears for their lives. “We want to go back to school, but our families are worried,” said Ahmed Abu Ali, a friend and classmate of the murdered teenager.

Education is under attack across occupied Palestine. The situation is most severe in Gaza, where more than 600,000 school-age children are approaching the end of a third year without formal in-person education. Israeli attacks there have killed at least 792 teachers and 18,639 students, according to the UN, and damaged or destroyed nine out of 10 school buildings.

But students and schools are also targets of spiralling Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank, where there is a climate of near total impunity for attacks on Palestinians.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/02/israeli-militants-attack-west-bank-schools-settler-violence

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1940s, Lydda, Palestine

1940s, Lydda, Palestine

Pals

@palsofnations

 

https://x.com/palsofnations/status/2017496148458561681/photo/1

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Al-Damun الدامون, a Palestinian village near Acre, had about 100 Catholic residents. Its people were expelled in 1948 [by Israelis], and the church was erased [by Israelis]

 

Al-Damun الدامون, a Palestinian village near Acre, had about 100 Catholic residents. Its people were expelled in 1948, and the church was erased   https://x.com/PalCatholic/status/1988687056135246052

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Israeli Settlers threw molotov cocktails and rocks, breaking windows and setting several houses and cars on fire in each place they targeted in protest at the release of 90 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails in exchange for three Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

"Since the war in Gaza began, settler violence has intensified further, displacing entire villages for the first time. On many occasions, the Israeli army has been documented failing to stop settler attacks, or even joining in."

"“We can’t even cross the road to our olive trees now or they’ll shoot at us,” he said of the settlers. “This is our land, and our houses, but they want us to leave for good.”"

Mohammed al-Fukaha, 46, inspects his father’s burnt-out truck. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

‘It’s not the damage, it’s the terror’: Israeli settlers run riot after ceasefire deal

Violent settlers descend on Sinjil and other West Bank towns to protest against release of Palestinian prisoners

By Bethan McKernan and Sufian Taha in Sinjil, West Bank

Thu 23 Jan 2025 00.00 EST

Last modified on Thu 23 Jan 2025 11.34 EST

Sundus al-Fukaha was watching the news at home in the occupied West Bank village of Sinjil on Saturday evening when she heard the sound of running and muffled voices outside. The next thing she knew, a molotov cocktail thrown by an Israeli settler crashed through the window, setting the sofa and curtains on fire.

In a video taken by an elderly relative, one of Sundus’ daughters, aged 12, can be seen throwing a pot of water at the blaze, while her 14-year-old sister tries to smother the flames with a cushion....READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/23/its-not-the-damage-its-the-terror-israeli-settlers-run-riot-after-ceasefire-deal

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ISRAEL SWALLOWING GAZA STRIP: Israel has no borders, neither by its own admission or by international law. That is why it is grabbing any land it can. - Salman Abu Sitta

ISRAEL SWALLOWING GAZA STRIP Israel has no borders, neither by its own admission or by international law. That is why it is grabbing any land it can. - Salman Abu Sitta

 

&

more information about Salman Abu Sitta who"was only 10 years old when the Nakba –  the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 – happened, forcing him from his home near Beersheba. Like many Palestinians of his generation, his traumatic loss and enduring desire to return would be the defining features of his life from that moment on.."

The man reconstructing Palestine’s lost villages

The 1948 Nakba was the systematic and violent ethnic cleansing of 530 Palestinian villages by the Jewish Irgun, Haganah and Stern Gang militias executed in collusion with the British Mandate.

The 750,000 villagers, like little Salman and his family, who survived the massacres, were forcibly torn from their ancestral roots that were bountifully nourished over centuries by a symbiotic partnership of sweat, toil, earth and sun belying the inane Zionist fiction that the belligerent Jewish colonisers arrived in an empty land and made the desert bloom.

“No other settler movement has depended on a vast array of myths, lies and misinformation, fuelled regularly by willing media and paid politicians. Palestinians did not need such tactics. Zionism did. Its policy and practice flies in the face of every principle of international law and basic facts of history and geography.”... READ MORE

Allar, west of Jerusalem - Ethnically cleansed by Zionists 26,847 days ago

Allar, west of Jerusalem - Ethnically cleansed 26,847 days ago Return is our Right and Destiny

 

A 1940s map of the area of Allar, Jerusalem from the Survey of Palestine.

Wikipedia description: "Refugees from Allar and other Palestinian villages who are old enough to remember life there express nostalgia for the natural abundance of the land lost. One Umm Jamal recalls eggplants, pomegranates, cucumbers and green beans as among the many products grown on the village lands which were fed by springs known to locals as Umm al-Hasan ("Mother of Goodness"), Umm al-Sa'd ("Mother of Happiness"), Umm Nuh ("Mother of Noah"), al-'Uyun ("The Eyes"), and Umm al-'Uyun ("Mother of the Eyes").^[25]

In 1992 it was described: "Stone rubble, concrete blocks and slabs, and steel bars litter the site, together with the remains of stone terraces and walls. One domed stone structure, the former school building, still stands. On the slopes overlooking the site, almond and cypress trees and cactuses grow along the terraces."^[26] 

635 flying checkpoints have been imposed between Palestinian towns, Refugee camps and cities #Palestine

Palestine PLO - NAD ‏@nadplo 8m8 minutes ago

635 flying checkpoints have been imposed between Palestinian towns, Refugee camps and cities #Palestine

Palestine PLO - NAD

Jerusalem, Palestine : This is the official account of the Palestine Liberation Organization - Negotiations Affairs Department. Follow news and updates from Palestine

Susan Muaddi Darraj's newest book "A Curious Land", short stories about Palestinians and the true meaning of home, wins the prestigious Grace Paley Prize in short fiction

Susan Muaddi Darraj

Thanks to the folks at the Aegis for this mention of the new book!

Congratulations to الدكتورة عايدة النجار Dr. Aida Najjar as she launches her new book today (10/19/2015) Her book is on the depopulated and destroyed Palestinian village of ‪#‎Lifta‬.

Congratulations to الدكتورة عايدة النجار Dr. Aida Najjar as she launches her new book today (10/19/2015) at Abdul Hameed Shoman Public Library in Amman, Jordan. Her book is on the depopulated and destroyed Palestinian village of ‪#‎Lifta‬.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10201101806904722&set=a.10201101725022675.1073741927.1755387677&type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/issa.abuothman/media_set?set=a.10201101725022675.1073741927.1755387677&type=3 

الدكتورة عايدة النجار Dr. Aida Najjar

The Arab villages lost since Israel's war of independence - Guardian Interactive: ...Pre 1948 ...March 1948 ... May 1948 ...June 1948 ...Oct 1948 ...July 1949 ...Now

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The Arab villages lost since Israel's war of independence - interactive

2 May 2014: Changing landscape: hundreds of Arab villages and towns were abandoned, attacked and de-populated during Israel's war of independence in 1948 – which is still remembered by Palestinians as their catastrophe or Nakba

In the West Bank village whose struggle to regain land taken by Israel was portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary, activists huddled around a campfire before dawn Monday to watch the ceremony.

Palestinians worm themselves as they watch the Oscar ceremony in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Bilin's struggle to regain land taken by Israel was portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary "5 Broken Cameras". The village has been the scene of weekly protests against the barrier, which were documented in the film. Palestinians charge that the barrier, which cuts into the West Bank, is a land grab. Israel says it's needed to keep Palestinian attackers out. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinians worm themselves as they watch the Oscar ceremony in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Bilin's struggle to regain land taken by Israel was portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary "5 Broken Cameras". The village has been the scene of weekly protests against the barrier, which were documented in the film. Palestinians charge that the barrier, which cuts into the West Bank, is a land grab. Israel says it's needed to keep Palestinian attackers out. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_PALESTINIANS_OSCAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-25-07-55-10

West Bank villagers view Oscars at night, outdoors

BILIN, West Bank (AP) -- This wasn't your typical Oscar viewing party.

In the West Bank village whose struggle to regain land taken by Israel was portrayed in an Oscar-nominated documentary, activists huddled around a campfire before dawn Monday to watch the ceremony.

For added symbolism, they pinned the screen to a tent just meters (yards) away from Israel's West Bank separation barrier, which cut off the village of Bilin from much of its land....READ MORE

Economist: An Arab village is asked to bow to the wishes of Israel's Jewish settlers

 http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21571937-arab-village-asked-bow-wishes-jewish-settlers-arab-haven

Divided Jerusalem

An Arab haven dissected

An Arab village is asked to bow to the wishes of Jewish settlers

Feb 16th 2013 | EAST JERUSALEM |From the print edition

BEIT SAFAFA, Arabic for “summertime home”, was the only one of some 40 Arab villages in the district of West Jerusalem to survive the war of 1948 that created Israel; the others were more or less emptied of their inhabitants, who mostly fled the killing and found their return barred by the victorious Israelis. As a result, the people of Beit Safafa have generally been loyal to the state of Israel. Many of its townsfolk welcomed the 1967 war, when Israel captured what was left of Palestine, because it reunited the town which for 20 years had been divided by the armistice line running down the middle of it. When other Palestinians rose up in protest against Israel’s occupation of the entire city, Beit Safafa remained a picture of harmony.

No longer. To speed up their travel from dwellings in the West Bank south of Jerusalem, Israel’s settlers have persuaded the government to plough a six-lane motorway (in some places it has ten lanes) through the Arab-populated town. Once the road is complete, the settlers will be able to drive from the West Bank to central Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital on the coast, without having to go through a traffic light. To make way for the motorway, which will slice through a community 9,000-strong, bulldozers demolish olive groves, terraces and caves hugging Bethlehem’s foothills.

For the Palestinian townsfolk who once championed integration with their Jewish fellow citizens, the motorway is a bitter blow ...READ MORE

Palestinians set up new tented protest village northwest of Jerusalem

Palestinian activists on Friday established a new tented protest village
northwest of Jerusalem. (MaanImages/HO)

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=557212

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Palestinian activists on Friday established a new tented protest village northwest of Jerusalem, the second such initiative against Israeli settlement building in as many weeks.

Activists set up three tents and a small building in the area near Beit Iksa, naming the village al-Karamah (Dignity).

Locals said around 400 Palestinians performed Friday prayers in the open area.

Saed Yakrina, an activist from nearby village Beit Liza, said the camp was "a message to Israel and all democratic societies that we are human, and we want peace."

Activists from across the political spectrum, mainly from nearby villages, have gathered and will sleep in the tents overnight, he told Ma'an.

Beit Iksa, surrounded by Israeli settlements, is set to be entirely encircled by Israel's separation wall, cutting it off from Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities ordered the confiscation of 500 dunams of the village's land three weeks ago, and do not permit any new building in the town, Yakrina said, noting that Israeli settlements were still expanding.

"We are looking for a life without checkpoints, walls and settlements," he said.

Israeli forces immediately shut down the military checkpoint at the entrance to Beit Iksa to prevent more activists and supporters from accessing the protest site, witnesses said.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces tore down the tented village Bab al-Shams, set up to protest Israel's plans to build the "E1" settlement on the land, severing the West Bank from Jerusalem.

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouthi on Friday said Bab al-Shams and al-Karama were a new dimension in the Palestinian struggle and that more protest villages would be established.

"The spirit of popular resistance which Bab al-Shams disseminated is being strengthened today in other areas including Izbat al-Tabib and Beit Iksa," the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative said in a statement.

A rally was held in Izbat al-Tabib in the Qalqiliya district of the northern West Bank on Friday to protest Israeli plans to demolish a school in the village.

The rally showed that popular resistance against Israel's occupation is spreading, Barghouthi said.

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In this Friday, June 15, 2012 photo, a Palestinian girls carries a Palestinian flag in the West Bank town of Susiya. Palestinian herders in this hamlet have clung to arid acres spread over several West Bank hills for decades, even as Israel forced them to live off the grid while providing water and electricity to nearby Jewish settlements and unauthorized outposts. But the end seems near for Susiya's 200 residents: Citing zoning violations, Israel is threatening to demolish the village, including German-funded solar panels. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

 http://news.yahoo.com/palestinian-village-faces-demolition-israel-224334826.html

Palestinian village faces demolition by Israel

By KARIN LAUB

SUSIYA, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians in this hamlet have clung to their arid acres for decades, living without proper electricity or water while Israel provides both to Jewish settlers on nearby hills. But the end now seems near for Susiya: Demolition orders distributed last week by the Israelis aim to destroy virtually the entire village.

Before it does, Israel could encounter an international complication: Several European countries, with traditional Israel ally Germany in the lead, have funded solar panels, wind turbines and wells to make life in area villages more bearable. A diplomatic incident may loom.

"They are turning us into refugees on our own land," said resident Mohammed Nawaja, principal of a 35-student elementary school that consists of four tents slated for removal.

Susiya is one of more than a dozen "unrecognized" Palestinian herding communities in the southern West Bank, a desert-like area close to the Green Line, Israel's pre-1967 war frontier with the West Bank, when it was ruled by Jordan. Its 160-odd residents live in shacks, caves and tents with cement-reinforced walls.

Israeli authorities say the structures are unlicensed. Residents and their supporters say Israel refuses to grant permits as part of a plan to clear the area for future territorial claims...READ MORE