NBC News correspondent casts doubt on forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948
Matt Bradley: “Palestinians feel -- and this history is still being debated -- Palestinians feel as if they were forced from their homes.”
Published
Citation From the February 10, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports
ALEX WITT (HOST): What is the situation like in Rafah right now? How do you see it?
MATT BRADLEY (CORRESPONDENT): Well, there's a lot of fear but there's also a lot of starvation, a lot of homelessness, people living in tents. We're talking about 1.4 million Palestinians who are living on the edge of the Gaza Strip, right where Gaza meets Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. They are about to be pushed, or many of them fear they are about to be pushed, from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Desert.
And this is why when you talk to Palestinians there, they keep on bringing up this one word: the nakba. It means "catastrophe" and that happened all the way back in 1948. That's the Arabic word for when the Israeli state was created and Palestinians feel -- and this history is still debated -- Palestinians feel as though they were forced from their homes. And that is exactly what they think is happening right now because the Israelis -- As you mentioned, Benjamin Netanyahu, he has said that he wants his military to explore or draw up a plan for a evacuation of civilians from Rafah. Well most of those people, the vast majority of them, have already been displaced from elsewhere in the Gaza Strip once, twice, three or four times. We were speaking to people who have been displaced more than four times, all of them moving from place to place as Israel's army has advanced right behind them. And that is exactly what we're seeing now.