Historic cities of Palestine

Throughout history the cities of Palestine stood for civilisation and progress, and were centres of learning, culture and trade; they are the soul of Palestine and its beating heart. In Bethlehem Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, was born, and to Jerusalem the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was taken on the Night Journey. There is not a Palestinian city or village whose stones do not carry a story of hope and pain, whose soil does not hold the memory of a people rooted in its land.

In 1948, under the British Mandate and its backing of the Zionist project, the Zionist movement seized the greater part of Palestine by force of arms and declared the establishment of Israel, after massacres and military operations that targeted Palestinian cities and villages, destroyed and depopulated hundreds of them, and uprooted more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and their land. Since then the Palestinian cities and the depopulated villages have remained witnesses to the Nakba, alive in the memory of their people generation after generation, carrying their names, their stories and their right of return, despite every attempt to erase their landmarks, their identity and their history.