By Deacon Stephanus Khoury
St. George Greek Catholic Church 
Zababdeh, Jenin

May 15, 2026

Today, we remember the Palestinian Nakba, the open wound that began in 1948, when an entire people were uprooted from their land. More than 500 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes, fields, churches, and mosques. The Nakba was not just an event in history — it was the beginning of an ongoing suffering that continues to this day. Among the villages that were displaced were Palestinian Christian villages, where church bells and prayers had echoed for centuries. On Christmas Eve, the people of villages such as Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im were expelled from their homes with the promise that they would return after a few days, yet they have never been allowed to return. The churches remain witnesses to injustice, while cemeteries and stone houses continue to call out for their people who were denied the right to come back.

The Nakba left a deep wound in Palestinian life: families were scattered, children were born in refugee camps, and generations grew up carrying the keys of their old homes and the memory of villages that were erased. Yet despite all the pain and suffering, the Palestinian people have remained steadfast in their identity, faith, and attachment to their land. Today, Palestinians continue to live under daily pressure from checkpoints, closures, and settlements. Thousands of workers are prevented from reaching their jobs, roads are blocked, cities are isolated, and villages are cut off from one another. In our area, there are growing fears regarding the settlements near Zababdeh, which threaten to prevent thousands of people from moving freely and living with dignity, tightening the pressure on the people of this land even more.

Even after 78 years, millions of Palestinian refugees still live far from their towns and villages, yet they have never forgotten their right of return. Return is not only a dream — it is a deeply rooted right carried in Palestinian memory from one generation to the next. On this anniversary of the Nakba, we pray for justice and peace, and that hope may remain alive in the hearts of our people. May Palestine remain present in the conscience of the world — a holy land for its people, carrying both the pain of history and the faith of resurrection.