In April 1967, Israel and Syria engaged in a border skirmish that culminated in the downing of six SyrianMiG fighters near theGolan Heights.[6] Shortly thereafter, after receiving misleading reports aboutIDF activity on the Israeli-Syrian border from theSoviet Union, Egypt expelledUNEF peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula[7] and laterblockaded theStraits of Tiran.[8] Roughlytwo weeks later, Israel responded with asurprise attack against the air forces ofEgypt,Jordan, andSyria, beginning theSix-Day War.[9] Following Israel's victory in the war, it occupied several territories that had previously belonged to its neighbors under the newly establishedIsraeli Military Governorate.[10]
Naksa
Palestinian refugees flee toJordan, crossing the destroyedAllenby Bridge, 1967Israeli soldiers expelling the residents ofImwasTheTalbieh refugee camp in Jordan, 1983. Talbieh camp was established in 1968 to accommodate refugees from the Naksa
By December 1967, 245,000 had fled from theWest Bank andGaza Strip intoJordan, 11,000 had fled from the Gaza Strip toEgypt and 116,000 Palestinians andSyrians had fled from theGolan Heights further intoSyria.[11] Until 1967, roughly half of all Palestinians still lived within the boundaries of formerMandatory Palestine, but after 1967 the majority lived as refugees in other countries.[5]
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.[b] 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.[12]
After theIDF's psychological warfare unit made a visit toQalqilya 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.[13]
The Naksa is commemorated annually onNaksa Day, a day of remembrance for the events of the 1967 displacement.[14]
Historiography
HistorianNur Masalha wrote in 2003 that: "In contrast to the large number of books written on thePalestinian refugee exodus of 1948, only meagre historical research has been carried out on the 1967 exodus."[15]
^Masalha 2003, "Between 1949 and 1967 the Palestinian population in the West Jordan Valley was dominated by three huge refugee camps surrounding the town of Jericho: ‘Ayn Sultan, Nu‘aymah and ‘Aqbat Jabir. The residents of these camps had been driven out from present-day Israel in 1948-9. During the 1967 hostilities or shortly after virtually all residents of these camps, approximately 50,000 people, fled or were expelled to the East Bank"
^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."[12]
^Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs (2007-12-13)."Arab-Israeli War of 1967".2001-2009.state.gov. Retrieved2024-10-23.
^McDowall, "By December, 245,000 had fled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip across the Jordan, 116,000 had fled from the Golan further into Syria, and 11,000 had left Gaza for Egypt. Of these 145,000 were UNRWA refugees uprooted for the second time. Many more left in the following months, either forcibly expelled by the occupying authorities or choosing not to live under Israeli military government. Over 300,000 probably left Palestine as a result of the 1967 war."
^Segev 2007, "The Kalkilya residents had left their homes because the IDF called upon them to do so. "The people from psychological warfare turned up in the middle of the night with loudspeakers," recounted Colonel Ze'ev Shaham in an official inquiry. "I sent them to the Kalkilya area---- That made [the residents] really afraid. They were told all sorts of tall tales. They got up en masse and started leaving town. The men from psychological warfare told them about an Iraqi attack that would hit them there. That helped a lot."
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