NEAR HAIFA — Thousands of Palestinians marched in northern Israel on Tuesday to commemorate the expulsion and flight of around 760,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war that marked the creation of the state of Israel, and to demand the right of refugees to return to their homes.

Many of the about 3,000 people also called for an end to the war in Gaza as they took part in the march near the city of Haifa marking the "Nakba," or "catastrophe," that saw over 80 percent of Palestinians in what is now Israel forced to flee their homes.

During the Nakba, around 531 villages were totally destroyed and some 15,000 Palestinians were killed by Zionist militias, who between 1947 and 1949 committed at least 70 massacres against Palestinians.

On Tuesday, many held up Palestinian flags and wore kuffiyeh head scarves during the annual March of Return, a rare Palestinian demonstration permitted to go ahead in Israel as the war in the Gaza Strip rages on.

Many clutched water bottles, and some pushed strollers, as they marched along a dirt path. One person held aloft half a watermelon, which became a Palestinian symbol after Israeli bans on the Palestinian flag because of its red, green and black colors. The crowd called for Palestinians to be freed from Israeli occupation.

"This is part of our liberation," said Fidaa Shehadeh, coordinator of the Women Against Weapons Coalition and former member of the Lydd Municipality Council. "It's not only about ending the occupation but also about allowing all refugees the ability to return to the homeland."

Shehadeh said her family was forcibly displaced from the coastal village of Majdal Asqalan, with some fleeing to the city of Lydd in what became Israel and others to Gaza. She considered herself an internally displaced person and said "refugees remain refugees" 76 years later.

Shehadeh said her uncles and aunts in Gaza, whom she said she was last able to visit in 2008 with Israeli approval, are now displaced again as they try to escape Israeli bombardment.

They do not know if or when they will be able to return to their homes, she said.

Shehadeh said she travels to the West Bank almost weekly to top up e-SIMs for her Gaza relatives so that they can remain in contact.

"Sometimes we wait for days to receive a 'good morning' message, that's how we know whoever sent it is still alive," she said.

Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza war, Gaza health officials say. Israel began its offensive in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in which 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 253 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

Arabs in Israel

Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel's population. They hold Israeli citizenship, but many identify with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Every year, participants of the march, among them descendants of Palestinians who were internally displaced during the 1948 war, visit a different village that was destroyed or depopulated by Zionist militias.

Israel rejects the Palestinian right of return as a demographic threat to a country it claims as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It has said Palestinian refugees must settle in their host countries or in a future Palestinian state.

Kareem Ali, 12, held a sign reading "My grandparents lived in Kasayir" as he marched beside his father, Hamdan, referring to one of the villages being remembered this year. The family now resides in Shefa'amr in northern Israel.

For many years, Hamdan's father, a farmer, would pass by the depopulated village and pick figs from a tree that remained, Hamdan said.

"Our memory is our power," he said.

Some Arab citizens say they have experienced increased hostility during the Gaza war, with hundreds facing criminal proceedings, disciplinary hearings and expulsions from universities or jobs, Haifa-based rights group Adalah says.

Israeli police claim they are combating incitement to violence.

BADIL, a Bethlehem-based organization advocating for refugee rights, estimated that by the end of 2021 some 65 percent of 14 million Palestinians globally were forcibly displaced persons, including refugees and citizens of Israel who were internally displaced.

Some 5.9 million people are registered with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Over 70 percent of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees, the majority of whom have been displaced yet again by Israel's onslaught on the besieged enclave.