May 15 marks 78 years of ongoing Nakba — of Palestinian dispossession and attempts to erase Palestine from the map of the world and Palestinians from their land. It also marks decades of Palestinian resistance and refusal to accept Israeli settler colonialism and occupation.
This year we share BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN)’s statement. Below that you will find a list of some events across the country and information about the Coalition.
BADIL and GPRN: Accountability through Sanctions to End the Ongoing Nakba
Original statement (and translations can be found on BADIL’s website.
May 2026 marks 78 years of ongoing Nakba and 31 months of genocide in the Gaza Strip: ongoing Israeli crimes that are enabled and bankrolled by Western, colonial states, exposing the extent and depth of their complicity. The Israeli regime relentlessly advances its Decisive Plan characterized by: ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip; escalation of colonial expansion in the West Bank; and enforcement of the campaign aiming to eliminate the presence and protection of international agencies and organizations, including UNRWA. As the Israeli crimes of forced displacement and transfer, colonization, apartheid and even genocide are normalized, the protection gap facing Palestinian refugees widens further. The ongoing inaction and complicity of states are also responsible for the replication of the Israeli regime’s genocide model in Lebanon. While the global solidarity movzement pushes for military, economic and political sanctions, the Palestinian people continue their struggle for liberation.
Due to the Israeli-perpetrated ongoing Nakba and ongoing inaction and complicity of states, Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are the largest and most protracted displaced population in the world. At 10.15 million, with 9.238 million refugees and 914,500 IDPs, this population makes up 66% of the Palestinian people.
The current rendition of the ongoing Nakba is manifested in the Israeli Decisive Plan. It aims to eliminate Palestinian self-determination and return through the imposition of Israeli domination, spatial apartheid, and forced displacement. In the West Bank, Palestinians are displaced, and their communities isolated by the closure apparatus, colonizers’ attacks, land confiscation, and suppression of all forms of resistance. Israeli spatial apartheid policies have been magnified in order to further fragment Palestinians and their land into macro and micro enclaves. Since 2023, more than 5,800 Palestinians have been displaced, and 45 communities have been completely depopulated in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a result of Israeli raids, colonizer attacks, and home demolitions. In addition, over 33,000 Palestinian refugees remain displaced from the emptied and enclaved refugee camps of Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin since January 2025, resulting from the “Iron Wall operation.” The Israeli closure apparatus is marked by over 925 movement obstacles, including at least 384 iron gates, the expansion of colonizer-only bypass roads and plans to construct 34 new colonies in 2026 across the West Bank and Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem and 1948 Palestine, the Israeli regime has accelerated its suppression of Palestinians, with surges in home demolitions, mass arrests, enclaving through discriminatory zoning and planning, and surveillance disguised as “security.”
In the Gaza Strip, nearly all 2.1 million Palestinians have been internally displaced at least six or seven times, and lack adequate shelters, healthcare and education. The ongoing Israeli blockade and restrictions on aid have depleted food, water, medicine and other essential items; inducing further malnutrition that will destroy an entire generation. Since the fake ceasefire, the Israeli regime has killed 854 Palestinians. As it continues to deliberately engineer malnutrition and a coercive environment, Palestinians are left with only three choices, as dictated in the Decisive Plan: surrender, flee or be killed. Furthermore, the imposition of the “yellow line” has imposed an enclave within an enclave, isolating Palestinians to approximately 42% of the Gaza Strip.
Under the pressure and influence of the Trump administration, UN Security Council Resolution 2803 incorporated Trump’s 20-point plan, contrary to international law and ultimately legitimizing the Israeli regime’s colonial aims, through the creation of the “Board of Peace” (BoP). The BoP – which inexplicably includes the Israeli regime itself – supposedly coordinates billion-dollar “reconstruction” pledges from third states. Not only has the BoP usurped the role of the UN and international organizations, it has yet to provide adequate aid to the Gaza Strip; and, since the war with Iran began, aid to the Gaza Strip has dropped 80 percent. Designed to absolve the Israeli regime from criticism, the BoP simultaneously prevents the UN and other states from intervening, and displaces legal and financial responsibility for the genocide while reframing reparations as donor-driven reconstruction. In doing so, the BoP consolidates control in external actors, sidelines Palestinians, and erodes their rights to self-determination and reparations. Resolution 2803 and Trump’s 20-point plan deny meaningful authority over governance, land, and resources while reproducing Israeli colonial domination under the guise of “reconstruction.”
Since the enforcement of its banning laws in January 2025, the Israeli regime has denied visas and permits to UNRWA, and demolished the Agency’s Jerusalem headquarters in January 2026. The Israeli regime continues to obstruct its aid and services, particularly in the Gaza Strip where UNRWA operations would save lives. Instead, there have been severe reductions in healthcare, education, and emergency services resulting from the failure of states’ to provide the Agency with the financial and political support it is due. Former Commissioner-General Lazzarini warned: “In the absence of a significant influx of new funding, the delivery of critical services to millions of Palestine Refugees across the region will be compromised.” By defunding and diverting their funding to other organizations, states are not only complicit in genocide but also failing to uphold Palestinian refugee rights and ensure their protection. By allowing the Israeli regime to continue its ban of a UN agency, states enable it to weaponize aid for its colonial and genocidal agenda.
Beyond the provision of aid and services, which are essential components of international protection, UNRWA has a crucial role in upholding the Palestinian right of return. The Agency is mandated to operate until the implementation of Article 11 of UN General Assembly Resolution 194: the right to reparations (including return, property restitution, compensation and non-repetition). Fundamentally and politically, the elimination of UNRWA is part of a broader Israeli campaign to eliminate the Palestinian right of return. States’ withdrawal of political and financial support to UNRWA further entrenches their complicity and violates their obligation to provide protection. States are not only obligated to support UNRWA, but they must also reject any frameworks that endorse its elimination, such as Trump’s 20-point plan, the BoP and the Israeli laws banning UNRWA. This includes the UN’s Strategic Assessment of UNRWA, which provides scenarios for its collapse. Importantly, states’ endorsement of colonial approaches and mechanisms serve to normalize Israeli crimes, and their entrenchment across historic Palestine and the region.
The application of the Israeli regime’s genocidal playbook to Lebanon is another example of this normalization and entrenchment. Allowing Israeli violations of another fake ceasefire has resulted in the displacement of over 1 million people under the guise of evacuation, the targeting of UN personnel and premises as well as humanitarians and journalists, and the destruction of entire villages and public and service infrastructure to prevent return and secure Israeli colonial expansion. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, including those that were forcibly displaced from Syria, have been displaced yet again. In line with the Decisive Plan, Israeli colonial expansion is to be extended beyond Palestine, into Lebanon but Syria, Jordan and Egypt in order to establish “Greater Israel.”
Support for the Israeli regime is also reflected in states’ policies at home: repressing, silencing, and criminalizing any and all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people. With the EU once again maintaining its economic agreement with the Israeli regime, and entrenching its complicity, it is more vital than ever that the solidarity movement escalate its direct actions to disrupt the status quo and impose material cost. Only through sustained and concerted pressure on states to end their complicity and impose military, political and economic sanctions on the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime will its crimes come to an end.
Accountability for ongoing Israeli crimes and states’ complicity begins with sanctions to dismantle the structures of Israeli domination and oppression. Imposing a comprehensive rights-based decolonization framework, that centers the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and return, is the only solution to the ongoing Nakba.
A statement by BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN).
Join actions and events in your area. Some include:
Friday May 15
- Kitchener-Waterloo: Deeply Rooted Short Film Program: 6pm at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Deeply Rooted)
- London: Nakba Day Vigil and Protest: 7pm at Victoria Park (CPSA London)
- St. John’s: Vigil for Palestine: 7pm at Bannerman Park Gazebo (Palestine Action YYT)
- Vancouver: Remembering the Nakba: 5:30pm at Grandview Park (Al Awda Vancouver)
- Vancouver: Don’t Drink with Genocide, Don’t Drink with Apartheid: 4pm at BC Liquor Store (CPA Vancouver)
- Naniamo: Nakba Never Ended Rally and Exhibition: 4pm at 3188 Barons Rd (Students for Palestine Committee)
- Toronto: Nakba Day Vigil: 6pm at Withrow Park (East End Acts)
- Toronto: 24 Hours of Palestinian Poetry: From 0:00 to 23:50 at The Theatre Centre (TPFF, Another Story, Aluna Theatre)
- Toronto: Toronto Palestinian Film Festival Nakba Commemoration: 6pm at OISE Toronto (TPPF)
- Toronto: Stories of Joy & Solidarity: 6pm at Roncesvalles United Church (Connecting Gaza)
Saturday May 16
- Toronto: Nakba Day Rally: 3pm at Sakofa Square (PYM Toronto)
- Montreal: Nakba Day Protest: 2pm at Zionist Consulate (PYM Montreal)
- Ottawa: Nakba Day Protest: 2pm at Parliament Hill (PYM Ottawa)
- Vancouver: Gaza Remains the Story, 825 E Hastings St (Al Awda Vancouver)
May 17
- Kitchener-Waterloo: Planting Seeds of Return Commemoration Event: 3pm at Hilltop Picnic Shelter, Waterloo Park (PYM KWC)
- Vancouver: Nakba. Learn it. End it.: 12pm at 825 E Hastings St (Parents for Palestine YVR)
- Vancouver: Paint Palestine Rooted Return: 6pm at 825 E Hastings St (Al Awda Vancouver)
- Brampton: Documentary The Real History of the Nakba: 2:30pm (Brampton 4 Palestine)
May 18
- Vancouver: Palestine in the World: 11:30, 825 E Hastings St (Weaving our Worlds)
10 Years of the Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian organizations came together in 2016 to form the Canadian BDS Coalition in response to the call from Palestinian Civil Society to support a global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions, targeting Israel’s system of settler-colonialism, occupation, and apartheid towards the Palestinian people. This is the work of ending the ongoing Nakba.
Our work began 10 years ago, in January 2016, when we contacted organizations part of the Canadian Boycott Coalition. We held the inaugural meeting of the Canadian BDS Coalition in April 2016. Since then, we have not stopped. We work independently in support of boycott, divestment and sanctions activities against Israel, within the Canadian context, and with international allies, addressing local challenges and concerns.
Canadian BDS Coalition: 9+ Years and Counting
In May 2024, we became the “Canadian BDS Coalition and International BDS Allies” when several groups from outside Canada joined to work together with “The Canadian BDS Coalition.” One of our inaugural events was to hold an International Week of Action, the first week of October 2024, “Resisting Genocide: Boycott for Palestinian Liberation.”
Our Coalition Members all agree on our Basis of Unity which recognizes the Palestinian People’s right to self-determination, to return, and to resist. In December 2025, we also started welcoming Affiliate organizations who support individual campaigns rather than being a full Member. Read more about our Members and Affiliates near the end of the report or find them here.
Our key campaigns include: Apartheid Wine and Produce (including our Ramadan Medjoul campaign), Shame / Boycott List, Company Specific Boycotts, Sportswashing, CRA National Week of Action, and Divestment from Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide. We’ve also developed resource, sanctions, and economic boycott pages with more information and tools for individuals and organizations.
We are grateful to continue this work into another decade. BDS is more important than ever, as we continue the fight to end the settler colonial project known as Israel.
Signatories
- ‘Aqbet Jaber Youth Center
- Addar for Culture and Arts
- Al ‘Ain Youth Center
- Al Awda Center
- Al Fawwar Youth Center
- Al Houla Association
- Al Jalil Association
- Al Karmel Sport Club
- Al Qadisiya Scout Group
- Alliance for Water Justice Palestine
- Alliance of Internationalist Feminists
- Alliance of Internationalist Feminists – Berlin
- Alternative Information Center
- Ansar Center
- Anti-Zionism Australia
- Arab Lawyers Association (UK)
- Askar Women’s Center
- Asociación Americana de Juristas
- Association France Palestine Solidarité
- Australian Jews for Human Rights
- Australian Palestine Advocacy Network
- BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
- Baladi Center for Culture and Arts
- BDS Almeria
- BDS Berlin (Germany)
- Belgian Academics and Artists for Palestine – BA4P
- Bellingen-Nambucca Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR)
- Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK)
- Centre for Global Education
- Child Cultural Center
- Children and Youth Association
- Cleveland Peace Action
- Coalition of Women for Justice and Peace
- Col·lectiu Güilis
- Disabled Rehabilitation Committee
- European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine
- Eyewitness Palestine
- FFIPP Europe
- Fraternity Association for Social and Cultural Work
- Gaza Action Ireland
- Deutsch-Palästinensiche Gesellschaft (German Palestinian Society)
- Haifa Cultural Center
- Habitat International Coalition
- Human Call Association
- Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- JAUA Jewish Advocates for Understanding Antisemitism
- Joint Advocacy Initiative
- Juthour Center
- Jews Against the Occupation ’48
- Jews for Palestine WA
- Jewish Voices of Inner Sydney
- Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
- Kangaroo Sport Club
- Lajee Celtic
- Lajee Center
- Majed Abu Sharar Media Foundation (MASMF)
- Makan Rights
- National Association of Democratic Lawyers
- Nuwat Association
- Ontario Palestinian Rights Association
- Palestine Charity Association for Women and Children
- Palestine Solidarity Alliance
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Britain)
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign Gauteng, South Africa
- Palestinian Awareness and Change Forum
- Palestinian Center for Arts and Heritage
- Palestinian Youth Forum
- Pallies
- Plataforma Axarquía con Palestina
- Popular Aid Association for Relief and Development
- Popular Arts Center
- Psychological and Social Development Association
- Red Universitaria por Palestina – RUxP (Spain)
- Refugee Rights Center – Aidoun
- Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
- Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Social Rehabilitation Association
- Social Rehabilitation Association – Al Far’a Refugee Camp
- Social Rehabilitation Center
- Solidarity Collective (Hertie School)
- Solidarity Group for Peace and Justice
- Sumud – the Finnish Palestine Network
- Sydney University Staff for Palestine
- The Canadian BDS Coalition and International BDS Allies
- The European Legal Support Center (ELSC)
- The Global Palestinian Refugee and IDPs Network (GPRN) (38 organizations)
- The Palestinian Forum for Chess
- The Popular Theatre
- The USA Palestine Mental Health Network
- Tulkarem Youth Center
- Unison AQA
- Voces Palestinas Por La Justicia, Málaga
- Women’s Activity Center
- Youth Development Center