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Palestine

A People. A Land. A Struggle That Will Not End.

Palestine is not just Gaza. Gaza is the wound the world is watching bleed in real time — but Palestine is a people with a history stretching back millennia, a culture of extraordinary depth, and a struggle for existence that has lasted 77 years. To understand what is happening today, you must understand what happened in 1948. And to understand 1948, you must understand the colonial logic that made it possible. This page is that understanding.

The Land & the People

Palestine is a territory at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. For centuries it was home to a majority Arab Muslim population, alongside Christian Arabs, Jews, and other communities who had lived together — not without tension, but without systematic dispossession — under Ottoman rule.

Palestinian culture is ancient and layered — in its cuisine, its embroidery (tatreez), its poetry, its olive groves, its architecture. The Palestinian people are not a people who appeared in 1948 to oppose a state. They are a people who were there, who built lives and communities and traditions across generations, and who were then told that their presence was the problem.

The Colonial Root: The British Mandate & the Balfour Declaration

In 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, declaring that Britain viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This became known as the Balfour Declaration. It was written without the consent of the Arab majority who lived in Palestine. It promised a homeland in a land Britain did not own, to a people who did not predominantly live there, without consulting those who did.

Britain had simultaneously made promises to Arab leaders during World War I — including the Hussein-McMahon correspondence — suggesting Arab independence in exchange for revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Palestine was understood by Arab leaders to be included in those promises. It was not honored. Britain administered Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate from 1920 to 1948, facilitating Jewish immigration while suppressing Arab political organization. When the situation became unmanageable, Britain handed the question to the newly formed United Nations and withdrew — without a plan, without accountability, and without peace.

The pattern is identical to what Britain did in Sudan, in India, in Ireland, in Kenya. Divide. Promise. Withdraw. Leave the wound.

The Nakba: 1948

In 1947, the UN proposed a partition plan dividing Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish leadership accepted it. The Arab leadership rejected it, arguing that a majority-Arab land could not be partitioned without Arab consent. When Britain withdrew in May 1948 and Israel declared independence, the first Arab-Israeli war began. By the time it ended, Israel controlled 78% of historic Palestine — significantly more than the UN partition had allocated.

During and after the war, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians — more than half the Arab population of historic Palestine — were expelled or fled from their homes. This is the Nakba: the catastrophe. Over 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed or depopulated. Families were separated. Deeds, keys, and memories were carried into exile. The Palestinian refugees and their descendants — now numbering over 5.9 million, registered with UNRWA — have never been allowed to return. The right of return, enshrined in UN Resolution 194 (1948), has never been implemented.

Israel does not officially commemorate the Nakba. In 2011, Israel passed the “Nakba Law,” which allows the government to withhold funding from institutions that mark Israeli Independence Day as a day of mourning. The memory itself is contested as a political act.

The Occupation: The West Bank

In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights in the Six-Day War. The Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982. The West Bank and Gaza have remained under Israeli military control — in different forms — ever since. The West Bank is home to approximately 3 million Palestinians. It is also home to over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in settlements that are illegal under international law (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).

The Palestinian Authority (PA) governs parts of the West Bank under the Oslo Accords framework — but its authority is severely limited. Israel controls borders, airspace, water resources, and movement. Palestinians in the West Bank require permits to travel between cities, to access agricultural land, and to build homes. Permit applications are routinely denied. Homes built without permits — which are nearly impossible to obtain — are demolished.

Since October 2023, Israeli military raids and settler violence in the West Bank have killed over 700 Palestinians and displaced thousands more. The city of Jenin and the Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps have been subjected to sustained military operations. As of May 2026, the West Bank is experiencing its most intense period of violence since the Second Intifada.

Gaza: The Open-Air Prison

Gaza is 365 square kilometers — roughly the size of Detroit — home to 2.3 million people, the majority of whom are descendants of refugees from the 1948 Nakba. Israel withdrew its ground forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but maintained control of its borders, airspace, and coastline. When Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel imposed a comprehensive blockade that has remained in place for 18 years.

The blockade has restricted the import of food, medicine, building materials, and fuel. Before October 2023, Gaza’s unemployment rate exceeded 45% and over 80% of its population depended on humanitarian aid. The UN described Gaza as “unlivable” as early as 2020. Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli military campaign has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, destroyed the majority of Gaza’s infrastructure, and displaced the entire population. Famine has been declared. The healthcare system has been almost entirely destroyed.

For a full account of the current war in Gaza, see our dedicated page: Gaza: The War the World Watched Live →

The International Framework & Its Failures

The Palestinian cause has more UN resolutions dedicated to it than any other conflict in history. The right of return (Resolution 194), the illegality of settlements (Resolution 2334), the status of Jerusalem, the rights of Palestinian refugees — all are enshrined in international law. None have been enforced. The United States has used its UN Security Council veto over 40 times to block resolutions critical of Israel. This is not a failure of international law. It is a demonstration of who controls its application.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza illegal under international law and calling for its end. In the same year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant. As of May 2026, neither has faced accountability. The gap between the law and its enforcement is where Palestinian lives are lost.

Key Facts

• The Balfour Declaration (1917) promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine without Arab consent.
• The Nakba (1948): 700,000+ Palestinians displaced. 500+ villages destroyed or depopulated.
• Palestinian refugees and descendants: 5.9 million registered with UNRWA.
• The right of return (UN Resolution 194, 1948) has never been implemented.
• Israeli settlements in the West Bank: 700,000+ settlers. Illegal under international law.
• Gaza blockade: in place since 2007. 18 years of collective punishment.
• Gaza war (Oct 2023–May 2026): 50,000+ killed. 2.3 million displaced. Famine declared.
• West Bank (Oct 2023–May 2026): 700+ Palestinians killed. Thousands displaced.
• ICJ: occupation declared illegal (2024). ICC: arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu (2024).
• The US has vetoed 40+ UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel.
• Palestine has more UN resolutions dedicated to it than any other conflict. None enforced.

NZETE: The Beacon

The Palestinian story is not foreign to Africa. It is written in the same ink. Colonial powers drawing borders without consent. A people told their presence is the problem. Resources and land taken under legal frameworks designed by those who benefit from the taking. International institutions that speak the language of rights but enforce them selectively. The dehumanization of a people as a precondition for their dispossession.

Africa knows this story. The Congolese know it. The Sudanese know it. The Sahelian people know it. And that is why, when South Africa — a nation forged in the fire of apartheid — stood before the International Court of Justice to argue that what is happening in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide, it was not acting alone. It was speaking for every people who has been told that the rules apply to everyone except those with the power to break them.

NZETE stands with the Palestinian people’s right to exist, to return, to live in dignity on their ancestral land. We stand with that right the same way we stand with every African people’s right to sovereignty, to their resources, to their future. Not because it is political. Because it is human. And we will always be on the side of the human.

From the Congo to Gaza, from Darfur to the West Bank — the tree sees all its branches. None are forgotten. None are expendable. The tree holds.

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Sources: UNRWA, UNHCR, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Al-Haq, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, UN OCHA, UN Special Committee on Palestinian Rights, peer-reviewed historical scholarship. Last reviewed: May 2026.