Maryam had just gotten married when the soldiers arrived. They killed dozens of men, women and children. And after an hour of intense violence, the village surrendered.

The men, including her husband, were rounded up, whilst the women and children were threatened with violence if they remained.

So she fled on foot and sought refuge in another village. But the soldiers came there too. So she fled again. And again. Until she found herself in a foreign country, where she spent the rest of her life.

She never learned about her husband's fate. Though she did learn that her entire village was destroyed.

Maryam's story took place 750,000 times in 1948. This was when 78% of historic Palestine was ethnically cleansed of Palestinian Arabs.

The cleansing took place through terror attacks, mass executions, massacres and threats. Many fled for their lives, whilst others were herded and dumped in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan or Lebanon. Those who tried to return were shot on sight or arrested and re-expelled.

19 years later, when Israel conquered the remaining 22% of historic Palestine, another 300,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled.

Since then, forcible expulsion has continued to happen in many ways.

Palestinians often return from abroad to discover that their IDs have 'expired' and that they cannot re-enter. 

Palestinians that enjoy dual citizenship may be able to re-enter as tourists. But they cannot build lives as they must exit the country every three months to renew their visas. And those visas can be denied at any time.

Palestinians who marry people outside of Palestine will be unlikely to add their spouses to the population registry. Thus they too have to leave if they want to remain together.

And then, of course, Palestinians are forced to leave when they can no longer endure the oceans of injustice inflicted upon them.

A 1971 United Nations report stated: "…the Government of Israel is deliberately carrying out policies aimed at preventing the population of the occupied territories from returning to their homes and forcing those who are in their homes in the occupied territories to leave, either by direct means such as deportation or indirectly by attempts at undermining their morale or through the offer of special inducements, all with the ultimate object of annexing and settling the occupied territories."

Nothing has changed since 1971. In fact, it has gotten much worse. Recent polls even show that half of Israeli Jews want to see all Palestinian citizens expelled.

Today, Palestinian refugees number in the millions and they are still unable to return home or even visit their homeland.