Naksa at 59: The Colonial War Against Palestine Never Ended

June 2026 marks the 59th anniversary of the Naksa, the Arabic term meaning “setback” or “defeat”, used by Palestinians to describe the events of June 1967. More than a war between states, the Naksa represented a new stage in a colonial process that had begun decades earlier and continues to this day.

The dominant narrative presents the so-called Six-Day War as a conventional conflict between Israel and neighbouring Arab states. This interpretation, however, ignores the central dimension of the Palestinian question: Palestine has been the site of a settler-colonial project based on land seizure, the displacement of the indigenous population, and the establishment of settler communities on occupied territory.

The Nakba of 1948 expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and destroyed hundreds of villages. The Naksa of 1967 deepened that process. In just six days, Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights, bringing almost all of historic Palestine under its control.

This was not a temporary occupation. Since then, colonisation has become a permanent policy.

Illegal settlements have been built on Palestinian land, natural resources have come under the control of the occupying power, communities have been fragmented by walls, checkpoints and military barriers, and East Jerusalem has been subjected to an accelerated process of colonisation aimed at altering its demographic composition.

It was in the aftermath of the Naksa that the system now widely identified by international human rights organisations as apartheid took shape. Palestinians and Israeli settlers live under different legal regimes while inhabiting the same territory.

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While settlers enjoy full civil rights and state protection, millions of Palestinians remain subjected to military occupation, restrictions on movement, home demolitions, arbitrary detention and the daily violence of settler expansion.

The separation wall cutting through the West Bank, the military checkpoints, territorial fragmentation and the continuous expansion of settlements are not isolated abuses. They are instruments of a colonial project designed to prevent Palestinian self-determination and transform occupation into a permanent reality.

The Naksa, therefore, did not end in June 1967.

It continues with every new settlement built on occupied land. It continues with every Palestinian family expelled from Jerusalem. It continues in the lives of millions of refugees denied the right to return to their homeland. It continues in the imprisonment of Palestinian political detainees and in the ongoing attempt to erase the national identity of a people who refuse to disappear.

The events that have unfolded since 7 October 2023 demonstrate this historical continuity. The catastrophe that has engulfed Gaza did not emerge in isolation. Rather, it represents the escalation of a process that began with the Nakba and was consolidated by the Naksa.

The systematic destruction of neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure reflects a colonial logic aimed at making Palestinian life on its own land increasingly impossible.

In light of this reality, a fundamental question arises: what is the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance?

The answer can be found within international law itself. Various United Nations resolutions recognise the right of peoples subjected to colonialism, foreign occupation and racial domination to struggle for self-determination. UN General Assembly Resolutions 3070, 3246 and 37/43 reaffirm the legitimacy of the struggles of colonised peoples to achieve liberation and independence.

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This principle was recognised in the national liberation movements of Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Vietnam and South Africa. There is no legal or moral basis for denying Palestinians a right that has been acknowledged for so many other peoples subjected to colonial domination.

For this reason, the memory of the Naksa should not be understood merely as the remembrance of a military defeat, but as the symbol of a struggle that remains alive.

Fifty-nine years later, Palestine remains one of the defining anti-colonial issues of our time.

The Naksa reminds the world that the Palestinian question is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle against settler colonialism, against apartheid and for national self-determination.

It is the struggle of a people who, despite massacres, expulsions, sieges and occupation, continue to assert their right to exist, to resist and to live freely in their own land.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.