By Martha Grevatt
May 20, 2026

Actions across the U.S. and around the world were called to observe the 78th anniversary of the Nakba (Catastrophe). Nakba Day — May 15 — commemorates the period in 1948 that the Zionist State of Israel declared its formation amidst its opening genocide campaign, when Zionist militias demolished 500 villages, massacred over 15,000 Palestinians and drove 750,000 others from their homes.

Protestors rallied outside the Israeli Consulate in Boston on May 15 to demand the City of Boston end its ongoing complicity with the genocidal state.

The Palestinian lands stolen during the Nakba form the core territory claimed by the Zionist settler state. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, sneered then that dispossessed Palestinians would “forget” the atrocities they experienced.

As Zakaria Kawa, a Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) organizer and the action’s emcee observed, the hundreds of thousands who turn out worldwide to honor the martyrs of al-Nakba prove Ben-Gurion was wrong and show up the ultimate failure of the settler project he helped establish. “Our children are here in Boston and throughout the world, and they have not forgotten!” Kawa declared.

Farah, another organizer from PYM, denounced Boston’s partnership with Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital network in the Zionist state, which is opening the Sheba ARC Landing, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup “accelerator,” with the support of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, both Democrats.

Sheba works hand-in-hand with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to maintain genocidal apartheid by recruiting and training medical staff.

Will Hodgkinson, a WWP Boston member, urged support for the campaign, originally called for by the Black Alliance For Peace and the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition, to demand that FIFA move the World Cup from Boston and the U.S. in June.

Other speakers demanded the release of the thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese hostages, imprisoned, malnourished, tortured and sexually abused by Zionist authorities; called for solidarity to defend Iran from U.S.-Zionist aggression; and linked the struggle for Palestinian liberation to the Indigenous peoples’ fights for LandBack and self-determination on Turtle Island.

From the consulate, demonstrators marched to the building on State Street which houses the Sheba “accelerator,” along with other companies complicit in the Zionist genocide, including Bank of America, chanting “Evict Israeli war criminals!”

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Washington Square Park in New York City on May 15.

Nerdeen Kiswani, chair of Within Our Lifetime, which organized the protest, told the crowd that the Nakba has never ended. She declared: “The Nakba lives in every bombing campaign, every demolished home, every checkpoint, every prison cell, every refugee camp, every child buried beneath the rubble funded by the United States, carried out by Israeli supporters, by the Gulf countries and every single disgusting, complicit actor in the international community.

“But the struggle also continues to live with every resistance fighter, with every Palestinian mother who continues to bear children, with every political prisoner who continues to educate and resist behind the prison walls and wage the Palestinian revolution,” she continued.

Kiswani was the target of an alleged assassination plot by a member of the Zionist JDL (Jewish Defense League)-613 Brotherhood. Kiswani and her family learned about it from the FBI in March after police arrested a man for planning to firebomb her home.

The protesters chanted for an hour and then marched through the streets of Manhattan. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra played several Palestinian songs, including “Ya Tir at-Tayer,” Oh Flying Bird. Kiswani explained that the singer asks the bird to fly over Palestine and carry his love and greetings to the land and its people. “The bird represents freedom and the ability to cross borders. Palestinians are prevented from crossing ourselves. So many Palestinians are not able to even go back and visit Palestine let alone return to their original hometowns and villages that they were exiled out of,” Kiswani said.

Nakba Day was observed in Philadelphia on May 15 with banner drops and displays around the city and an early evening rally and march through Center City.

Starting early in the morning, banners were displayed around the city that proclaimed that the Nakba, which began with the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, continues to this day. A banner stating that all hospitals in Gaza were destroyed in the most recent genocide was hung near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Another banner mentioning Israel’s intentional murder of at least 260 journalists hung from an overpass above the I-676 expressway.

Other banners were held in highly visible locations. One hung above the I-76 expressway pointed out that over $300 billion in U.S. tax dollars have funded Israeli genocide and land theft in Palestine since 1948. Another boldly stated: “NAKBA Never Ended — Don’t Look Away!”

During the day, activists held a banner outside Philadelphia School District headquarters that read “From Philly to Uhm Al-Khair, Stop Shuttering Schools.” Outside Philadelphia City Hall, a banner sponsored by Mobilization4Mumia drew attention to the Nakba.

Over 100 activists rallied in Rittenhouse Square at 6:00 p.m., then marched through Center City. Activists carried several banners critical of the Zionist U.S.-Israeli Nakba that continues to this day.

The demonstration targeted the genocide-supporting restaurant Goldies on Sansom Street and weapons manufacturer Day & Zimmermann on Market Street. The demonstration drew the attention and support of many shoppers and diners and ended with a final rally at City Hall.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Seattle on May 17 in memory of the Nakba. But instead of mourning, Nakba Day is always proclaimed as a day of struggle. The march, from Seattle Center to the Pike Place Market, with chants in Arabic and English, certainly projected the great liberation struggle, undeterred by the genocidal violence of the U.S. war against them.

A speaker praised the “beautiful people” of the Global Sumud Flotilla as they are about to depart with solidarity aid from across the Mediterranean and worldwide for Palestine. The Flotilla expresses the necessity to escalate and fight injustice, speakers said.

The march also strongly condemned the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

Protesters condemning the Nakba on the 78th anniversary took to an overpass at Houston’s busiest freeway on May 15. With signs and flags, protesters wearing keffiyahs cheered for hours as passing cars honked, waved and hung out of car windows with raised fists during 5 p.m. rush-hour traffic.

Will Hodgkinson, Jim McMahan, Betsey Piette, Gloria Rubac and Brenda Ryan contributed to this article.