G12 Graduation Project · Globe International School · 2025/2026

The Lens
Changes
Everything

A documented examination of the Palestinian narrative.
Every claim sourced. Every statistic verified.

0 Palestinians expelled, 1948
0 Villages destroyed
0 Registered refugees today
Scroll to explore
May 15, 1948

The Nakba
النكبة · The Catastrophe

In Arabic, nakba means catastrophe. As Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes, 531 villages were destroyed or depopulated, and a people were displaced from 78% of their historic homeland. They have never been permitted to return.

These are not disputed figures. They come from the United Nations, from Israeli historians using declassified military archives, and from international human rights organizations. The question has never been whether it happened, but how it is named, framed, and taught. Click any card to see its sources.

750,000+
Palestinians expelled
1948
531
Villages destroyed or depopulated
1948
78%
Of historic Palestine became Israel
1948
5.9M
UN-registered Palestinian refugees today
2024
700K+
Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank
2024
17+
Years of Gaza blockade
2007–Present
The Ground Tells a Different Story

The Shrinking Map

From a thriving society across all of historic Palestine to a fragmented existence in two disconnected territories, the geography itself is evidence. Navigate the transformation across eight decades. This is the same map from the video, interactive.

Why Does It Matter?

3 of the world's
major religions call Jerusalem holy

This is not only a political dispute. Jerusalem, and the land around it, is the center of gravity for billions of people across three faiths. What happens there does not stay there.

Islam
Al-Aqsa Mosque · Dome of the Rock
Site of the Prophet's night journey
(Isra' and Mi'raj)
Christianity
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Site of the Crucifixion and Resurrection
Via Dolorosa
Judaism
Temple Mount · Western Wall
The holiest site in the Jewish faith
The eternal city of David

Jerusalem is the most contested city on Earth, not because one side fabricated its claim, but because all three claims are real, ancient, and deeply felt. Understanding this is the beginning of understanding why a fair resolution has been so elusive.

The Turning Points

How It Unravelled

Four events that changed the trajectory of Palestinian history. Each is documented, archived, and contested in its interpretation, but not in its basic facts.

1917
The Balfour Declaration
British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild promising British support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", while pledging that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The latter promise was never kept.
British Library, Original document
1933–1945
The Holocaust
Six million Jewish lives were murdered by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust transformed global consciousness about Jewish safety and sovereignty, and galvanized international support for a Jewish state. Understanding this context is essential: the creation of Israel was not an accident of colonial ambition alone, but a response to one of history's worst genocides. The tragedy is that the Palestinian people, who bore no responsibility for the Holocaust, bore much of its consequences.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
1947
The UN Partition Plan, Resolution 181
The UN General Assembly voted 33–13 to partition Palestine: 55% for a Jewish state, 44% for an Arab state. At the time, Arabs comprised ~67% of the population and owned ~94% of the land. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan; Arab states rejected it. The plan was never implemented, war broke out instead.
UN Resolution 181, Full text
1948
The Nakba, 750,000 Palestinians Expelled
As Israel declared independence, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began. By its end, Israel controlled 78% of Mandatory Palestine, far exceeding the UN partition proposal. 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. 531 villages were destroyed. The new state passed laws preventing the refugees from returning. Israeli historians, including Benny Morris, using declassified IDF archives, have documented both expulsions ordered by Israeli commanders and civilians fleeing combat. Both happened.
The Mechanism

The Same Event.
Different Words.

Media framing is not about lying, it is about which facts to include, which words to choose, and whose perspective to center. These are real headlines, covering the same events. The words chosen are never neutral.

Language
Who is called a "terrorist"? Who is a "freedom fighter"? Who is a "militant"? The same person, described to different audiences.
Imagery
Whose pain you are shown shapes whose pain you feel. The choice of which images to broadcast, and which to withhold, is editorial, and political.
Silence
Choosing not to show is itself a statement. What a story leaves out is as meaningful as what it includes.
Framing
Context determines who deserves your sympathy. "Israel responded to Hamas rockets" frames events differently than "Hamas fired rockets after Israeli airstrikes killed 15 civilians."

Real Headlines. Same Event.

Compare how different outlets covered the exact same event. Select an example below.

The Full Presentation

Watch the Film

This website is a companion to a 60-second documentary-style video produced as part of Ahmed Medhat's Grade 12 graduation project at Globe International School. The video covers seven scenes, from the Nakba to media framing, in animated form.

Video embed

Replace the commented iframe above with your YouTube video ID
The Researcher

About This Project

My name is Ahmed Medhat, and I am a Grade 12 student at Globe International School. This project grew from a question I could not leave alone: why do people who read the news every day have such fundamentally different understandings of the same events?

Palestine is one of the most covered, and most misunderstood, stories in the world. Not because the facts are unclear, but because of how those facts are framed, which voices are centered, and what context is provided or withheld. The mechanism of narrative is invisible until you learn to see it.

This project is about media literacy as much as it is about Palestine. I wanted to create something that does not just make claims, but proves them. With sources you can check, maps you can explore, and comparisons you can see for yourself.

Every statistic on this website is sourced from the United Nations, Israeli human rights organizations, international human rights bodies, or peer-reviewed academic historians. My goal is not to convince you of a conclusion — but to give you the materials to reach your own.

Globe International School Grade 12 · 2025/2026 Media Literacy Human Rights Primary Sources
Ahmed Medhat
Globe International School · G12
"The most powerful thing you can do is choose your sources carefully — and then show your work."
Go Deeper

Further Reading

For those who leave the video wanting more, curated books, documentaries, and organizations.

Books
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Ilan Pappe, 2006
Israeli historian (University of Exeter) documents the systematic depopulation of 531 Palestinian villages in 1948
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
Benny Morris, 1988 / revised 2004
Landmark revisionist history using declassified Israeli military and state archives
All That Remains
Walid Khalidi, 1992
Documents each of the 531 destroyed or depopulated Palestinian villages by name and location
The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
Avi Shlaim, 2000
Oxford historian examines Israeli-Arab relations and the peace process across seven decades
Documentaries
Al Nakba (2008)
Al Jazeera Documentary Channel
Four-part series documenting the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis through testimony and archive
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi
Oscar-nominated documentary filmed by a Palestinian farmer in Bil'in village over five years of protest
Tantura (2022)
Alon Schwarz
Israeli documentary examining testimonies about the 1948 massacre at the Palestinian village of Tantura
The Occupation of the American Mind
Sut Jhally, 2016
Examines how US media coverage frames the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, directly relevant to the media literacy theme
Organizations
UNRWA
UN agency for Palestinian refugees providing education, healthcare, and relief to 5.9 million people
B'Tselem
Israeli human rights organization, the most comprehensive database of occupation-related rights violations
Human Rights Watch, Israel/Palestine
International documentation of violations, including the 2021 report classifying Israeli policies as apartheid
Al-Haq
Palestinian human rights organization founded 1979, affiliated with the International Commission of Jurists
UN OCHA, oPt
UN Humanitarian Affairs, real-time data on the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory
Full Bibliography

Sources

Every claim on this website is documented below. Sources span UN bodies, Israeli and international human rights organizations, peer-reviewed academic historians, and international legal institutions. All links are live.