Remembering the Nakba: Embodied memories of occupation, continuous resistance

“That summer, our maternal and paternal aunts and uncles, who lived in the western part of Jerusalem, also took refuge in Birzeit, following the horrors of the Dayr Yasin massacre.”  Samia Khoury- a founding member of  Birzeit's  Board of Trustees

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Tracing back its development, Birzeit University has never been isolated from the political conditions that weathered Palestine. The phases of its growth from an elementary school for girls to a co-educational high school, an intermediate college, a four-year college, and eventually a full-fledged university span four political eras: the British Mandate, the Jordanian rule, the Israeli military occupation, and the Palestinian National Authority.

As today marks the seventy-second anniversary of Al-Nakba, the catastrophe that uprooted around 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and stole more than 80 percent of their lands, we remember how this tragedy also marked a turning point in the history of Birzeit University, a college back then.