Hundreds of Arab and Jewish students participated today, Wednesday, May 13, in the annual Nakba Day ceremony at Tel Aviv University. The ceremony, held for the 15th consecutive year, was led by the Hadash and Balad student cells. Under heavy security and police fencing, hundreds of students and lecturers gathered to commemorate the Nakba and to protest against the government’s policies of war, expulsion, and apartheid.
As in every year, students delivered speeches at the ceremony in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Ayoub Makhoul, a nursing student and an activist in the Hadash Students leadership, shared the story of his aunt Frida. “Aunt Frida, my mother’s cousin, was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon, after my grandfather, his family, and his sisters were expelled from the village of Al-Bassa.”
Communist Party of Israel Secretary General Adel Amer, Hadash MK Ofer Cassif and former Hadash MK Youssef Jabarin among demonstrators at the Nakba Day ceremony in Tel-Aviv University, May 13, 2026 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)
Makhoul recounted, “While we were talking around the holiday table about how painful it is to see what the Israeli occupation army is doing in Lebanon, Aunt Frida began to tell us about Beirut, her childhood in the camp, and the family that was scattered across the world as a result of wars and exile. She spoke about her brother Khaled, who was killed by the Phalangists, about her sister, who endured violence and rape, and about years of fear and displacement.”
“As I listened to Aunt Frida’s story, I realized that the Nakba is not a distant memory, nor is it a page that was written and closed. The Nakba is a reality that my family lives in. We still live it to this day, in the small, daily details of our lives,” he said. “And that is why I am telling this story today, specifically in Hebrew. You will not succeed in expelling us from here, either voluntarily nor by force. We are staying here. We will continue to struggle for the end of the occupation, the right of return, and the end of the Nakba,” he concluded.
This year, the Hadash student cell compiled and distributed a booklet of testimonies and stories from students who are third-generation descendants of the Nakba. The introduction of the booklet read: “For us, those born many years after the disaster, the Nakba still shapes our consciousness and our emotional world. We carry it in memory and return to it every Memorial Day—as a cry of pain and hope, and as an affirmation of the right of our Palestinian people to freedom and independence, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”
According to the booklet introduction, “This year, we are holding the ceremony to mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba at Tel Aviv University, for the 15th consecutive year. This ceremony, which our comrades in Hadash Students initiated in 2011, came in response to the racist Lieberman Law, which sought to prevent the commemoration of the Nakba within official institutions, universities and schools. The answer to that was this event, which over the years has become the most prominent and important event in the student struggle across universities in the country.”
“For years, generation after generation, we stood inside the university to tell what they sought to hide, and to remember what they thought we had forgotten. We carried both the pain and the hope together, turning memory into an ongoing struggle, while standing firm against any entity that sought to silence our voice and erase our narrative. This is also a message to the establishment that thought it had broken our determination and bent our backs.”
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31011
