On May 15, 2026, Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition joins our fellow Palestinians in exile and under occupation, and all people of conscience around the world, in commemorating the 78th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, an ongoing genocide confronting our people in Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora. We honor the steadfastness of our Palestinian people and reaffirm the inalienable right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, lands and properties in all of historic Palestine.
For 78 years, the Palestinian people have endured forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, siege, imprisonment, massacres and genocide. In 1948, more than 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias and colonial forces, and more than 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed in an organized campaign to erase the Palestinian people from their homeland. Yet despite decades of dispossession and exile, the Palestinian people have never abandoned their land, their identity, or their historic and collective right to return.
Today, the ongoing Nakba continues in Gaza, throughout the occupied West Bank, in Jerusalem, and across the Palestinian refugee camps in the region and throughout the diaspora. The genocide in Gaza, the destruction of homes and refugee camps, the starvation siege imposed upon the Palestinian people, and the attacks on Palestinian refugees are all part of the same colonial project that began in 1948. The attempt to eliminate the Palestinian refugee question, including the efforts by the U.S. and “Israel” to criminalize, defund and shut down UNRWA schools and services, is an attempt to eliminate Palestine itself.
Al-Awda affirms that the right of return is not symbolic, negotiable, or subject to political compromise. It is an individual and collective right guaranteed under international law, including UN Resolution 194, and it remains at the heart of the Palestinian liberation struggle. The refugee camps of Palestine and the diaspora are not merely places of exile; they are living centers of memory, resistance and determination. The Palestinian people, generation after generation, whether in the camps surrounding Palestine or in the far diaspora, including here in the United States, continue to carry the keys, the names, the histories and the future of Palestine.
As we commemorate the Day of Palestinian Struggle, this day is not only one of remembrance, but of mobilization and action. In the United States and throughout the world, our responsibility is to organize, educate, resist and build our collective movement to a level capable of confronting Zionism, racism, imperialism and repression. The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is inseparable from the struggle against war, colonialism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism and state repression in the United States itself.
Today, the Trump administration and its allies continue to intensify attacks on the Palestinian community and the broader movement for Palestinian liberation, even as they escalate their military and economic assaults on Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. Even university administrations and city governments are using police violence, arrests and smear campaigns against those who speak out against genocide, interrupt the war machine, or work to stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land in West Bank settlements. These attacks are designed to criminalize solidarity, silence dissent, and intimidate those who speak out against genocide and occupation. Al-Awda PRRC strongly condemns the persecution and targeting of Palestinian organizers, students, community leaders and activists.
We highlight in particular the cases of Mahmoud Khalil and Salah Sarsour, whose targeting for ICE detention and attempted deportation reflects the growing repression directed at Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian liberation in the United States. We demand justice and freedom for Mahmoud Khalil, Salah Sarsour and all those targeted for their political beliefs, organizing and solidarity with Palestine. We affirm that despite the repression and the crimes against our community, these attempts to suppress the movement will fail. The Palestinian cause cannot be erased, silenced or criminalized.
For over 78 years, Palestinians and their supporters have built a powerful movement for return and liberation across generations and borders. Today, as the Zionist entity stands exposed before the world for its crimes against humanity, millions are rising in solidarity with Palestine. From refugee camps to universities, from labor unions to city streets, the demand for justice and liberation grows stronger every day. We urge all to take to the streets in the mass demonstrations commemorating 78 years of Nakba and committing to the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation on the cities and campuses of North America and around the world.
On this 78th anniversary of the Nakba, Al-Awda PRRC reaffirms that there can be no justice without return, no peace without liberation, and no future built on colonization, genocide and apartheid. We are on the road together to return, to liberation, and to a free Palestine from the river to the sea.
We will return!
Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
May 15, 2026
