Town Councilors Issue Nakba Remembrance Day Statement

Source: Jill Brevik

May 18, 2026

Town Councilors Jill Brevik (District 1), Amber Cano-Martin (District 2), and Ana Devlin Gauthier (District 5) read the following statement in commemoration of Nakba Remembrance Day, at the Amherst Town Council meeting of May 18, 2026. The statement was also endorsed by Councilors Hala Lord (District 3) and Ellisha Walker (at large).

Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) Day is observed annually on May 15, marking the displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The 78th anniversary of the Nakba was observed globally with memorials, rallies and education events.

---

In honor of Nakba Remembrance Day, we recognize the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

May 15, 2026 was the 78th commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in English, a term which refers to the violent dispossession and exile of more than 750,000 Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 by Zionist militias, in order to form the state of Israel. For almost 8 decades, Palestinians, their culture, their resilience, and their suffering have been invisible in spaces like this town room.

Displacement, an ongoing nakba, is still the reality for millions of people today who have been forced to leave their homes again and again, in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. In Lebanon as well (a country the size of Connecticut that is connected to Palestine by shared borders and traditions) villages are being ethnically cleansed and civilians are being killed on sight for leaving their homes. With US backing and weapons, the Israeli military continues to attack civilians, and has done so more than 2,400 times after the ceasefire that began in October 2025, in the same way that it has violated all ceasefires before that.

While the news cycle moves on, Gaza is in the longest period without relief aid, lasting 19 months. 1.1 million children remain at risk of starvation. There is not enough food; or fuel, which is necessary to run the desalination plants that provide Gaza’s drinking water, leaving 91% of the population to face acute water insecurity. More than 250,000 Palestinian and Lebanese people have been killed or severely injured since October 2023 (with some sources reporting much higher numbers) and all of our most trusted human rights organization have called these actions genocide, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, B’Tselem, the International Federation for Human Rights, Oxfam, Save the Children, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

Those killed by the US-backed Israeli military include the loved ones of Amherst community members. We see you, all of you, who have to go on, and who continue to show up for your community here in so many ways.

We are witness to the grief and pain of our neighbors who have been watching the news relentlessly for the past two and a half years to see if their loved ones are safe, who endure trauma responses from calling their father, or cousin, or aunt and hearing the phone ring and ring and go to voicemail. Who have family members who are still under the rubble in the south of Lebanon and in Gaza.

We also see those affected by rising anti-Islam and anti-Arab hate, yes, here: families in and around Amherst have endured racial slurs, property damage, and physical aggression. Residents have received threats and had events canceled because of their identity.

Several of us here are also connected to a school in Gaza, named the Sumud School, Sumud meaning “resilience” in English, and we receive regular communication from the teachers and students who have continued to educate and learn and play despite having been forcibly displaced multiple times, despite neighboring buildings being bombed, despite continuous deaths of parents, children, siblings, and friends in their community, despite having to reduce their school hours because the children and teachers were starving as a result of of Israel’s blockade of food and supplies, and did not have enough energy to continue into the afternoons. I think of them all the time, when I put my kids on the bus, and when we debate the school budget here.

I also think of the more than $40 billion our government has given or pledged to the Israeli military and spent on our own participation in these atrocities, when we talk about budget cuts and diminishing town services. I think of the white phosphorus and bombs we’ve helped purchase, the ecocide we’ve supported, when we talk about combatting climate change.

Simply marking this moment and telling these stories and the history behind them, are the types of actions that have helped the world wake up to what is happening. That the United States has been complicit, through Democrat and Republican administrations, and continues to be complicit in Israel’s ongoing nakba by providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic impunity even as its leaders openly describe and enact plans to ethnically cleanse and depopulate Palestinian and Lebanese communities today. And as we tune into news about US escalation in places like Iran, remember that this is enabled by our society’s general justification of, or ignorance to, war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon, as well as our media’s bias and complicity in their erasure.

The ongoing Nakba affects our community deeply. If you weren’t aware of this history, this day of remembrance, or its relevance to our community, there are endless opportunities to open your eyes, right here in our area. To my fellow councilors, our voices inherently carry louder than others–please take every opportunity to acknowledge these atrocities and support your constituents who are grieving, and advocate for the end of US involvement in this genocide. And to anyone listening, I urge you to reach out to me and I would be happy to connect you to one of the many groups expending tremendous energy to offer education, and who celebrate Palestinian and Lebanese culture while fighting for their freedom from oppression. Thank you.