Flight of Palestinians in the aftermath of the Six-Day War
This article is about Palestinian exodus following the 1967 War. For other events of Palestinian displacement, see Palestinian exodus. For other meanings of "Naksa", see Naksa (disambiguation).
The 1967 Palestinian exodusorNaksa (literally "setback")[1] refers to the flight of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians[2] out of the territories captured by Israel during and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, including the razing of numerous Palestinian villages of Imwas, Yalo, and Bayt Nuba, Surit, Beit Awwa, Beit Mirsem, Shuyukh, Al-Jiftlik, Agarith and Huseirat and the "emptying" of the refugee camps of Aqabat Jaber and ʿEin as-Sultan.[3]
History
Approximately 145,000 of the 1967 Palestinian refugees were refugees from the 1948 Palestine War.[4] By December 1967, 245,000 had fled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip further into Jordan, 11,000 had fled from the Gaza Strip further into Egypt and 116,000 Palestinians and Syrians had fled from the Golan Heights further into Syria.[4] Until 1967, roughly half of all Palestinians still lived within the boundaries of former Mandatory Palestine, but the majority lived outside the territory from 1967.[4]
AUnited Nations Special Committee heard allegations of the destruction of over 400 Arab villages, but no evidence in corroboration was furnished to the Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the population of the occupied territories.[a] In 1971, this UN committee published a report in which it stated that:
On the basis of the testimony placed before it or obtained by it in the course of its investigations, the Special Committee had been led to conclude that the Government of Israel is deliberately carrying out policies aimed at preventing the population of the occupied territories from returning to their homes and forcing those who are in their homes in the occupied territories to leave, either by direct means such as deportation or indirectly by attempts at undermining their morale or through the offer of special inducements, all with the ultimate object of annexing and settling the occupied territories. The Special Committee considers the acts of the Government of Israel in furtherance of these policies to be the most serious violation of human rights that has come to its attention. The evidence shows that this situation has deteriorated since the last mission of the Special Committee in 1970.[5]
After the psychological warfare unit made a visit to Qalqilya and many of the residents had fled, the UN representative Nils-Göran Gussing noted that 850 of the town's 2,000 houses were demolished.[6]
^Para 57: appearing in the Sunday Times (London) on 11 October 1970, where reference is made not only to the villages of Jalou, Beit Nuba, and Imwas, also referred to by the Special Committee in its first report, but in addition to villages like Surit, Beit Awwa, Beit Mirsem and El-Shuyoukh in the Hebron area and Jiflik, Agarith and Huseirat, in the Jordan Valley. The Special Committee has ascertained that all these villages have been completely destroyed. Para 58: the village of Nebi Samwil was in fact destroyed by Israeli armed forces on March 22, 1971.[5]
