The years between the Nakba and the 1967 war were a period of exile, political reorganization, and the slow rebuilding of Palestinian national consciousness under difficult conditions. The physical destruction of 1948 was followed by the political challenge of reconstituting a people scattered across borders and living under different administrations.
Refugees and Host Countries
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians found themselves in refugee camps in the West Bank (then annexed by Jordan), the Gaza Strip (under Egyptian administration), Lebanon, and Syria. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provided basic services — education, health, rations — but the fundamental demand — return to their homes — remained unmet. Israel refused repatriation and worked to erase the physical traces of the destroyed villages. New maps, new place names, and new settlements covered the landscape of the lost homeland.
The Re-emergence of National Organization
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Palestinian political movements began to reconstitute themselves. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. Fatah and other groups developed the idea that Palestinians themselves, rather than Arab states alone, must lead the struggle for liberation and return. Guerrilla actions launched from neighboring countries and political organizing in the diaspora and in the camps laid the groundwork for the post-1967 period. The experience of exile produced a generation that defined itself by the unresolved Nakba and the determination to reverse it.
Life Under Different Administrations
In the West Bank, Jordanian rule brought citizenship for many but also political constraints and the suppression of independent Palestinian organization. In Gaza, Egyptian administration left the population in a confined territory with limited economic prospects and heavy military presence. Across the former Mandate borders, the memory of the lost villages and the determination to return remained the defining feature of Palestinian collective life. By 1967 the Palestinian national movement had recovered enough organizational capacity to face the next catastrophe — the occupation of the remaining territories — with a clearer sense of its own agency.