From CNN Interactive writer Barbara McCann

(CNN) -- Side by side with the Israelis, Palestinians also are marking a turning point in their history. For them, the events of 1948 mark not a birth but "al-nakba" -- Arabic for catastrophe.

"It (was) the expulsion and the uprooting and the displacement of the Palestinians from their national home. And the national home was the state of Israel," Palestinian historian Ibrahim Abu-Lughod explains. "So the people experienced this as catastrophic."

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes or were driven out when the British withdrew and fighting broke out among Jewish militias, Palestinian fighters and Arab armies. About 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, according to the United Nations.

Once the Arabs were defeated and the land was partitioned, Jews settled into their new independent state.

Suddenly homeless

"That morning when we were ordered to go out, we were led not to the main road by which vehicles go, but were led to the mountains. People were really frightened that they sent us to the mountains to kill us, really terrified," recalls the Rev. Odeh Rantissi, an Anglican priest who was 12 when Jewish soldiers ordered his family to leave the town of Lydda.

He and other townspeople spent several nights outside with no food or water before they found refuge in a classroom at a Quaker school in Ramallah.

Hear Father Odeh Rantissi (54 sec., 1.1M aiff or wav)

Rantissi shared his memories as part of a commemoration of the events of 1948 that is taking place throughout the Palestinian community. On the anniversary of al-nakba, Palestinians are remembering their history and identity.

"Now, because the primary concern is not survival, there is time to reflect. The 50th anniversary is such a huge number ... and, now that we are lucky enough to control part of the land, it is a great time for people to remember what happened in 1948." says Adila Laidi, director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah.

The center, which has its own Web site describing al-nakba, has been collecting oral histories from those who lost their homes in 1948 and documenting the hundreds of Arab villages that disappeared.

'A festering sore'

In 1967, more Palestinians lost their homes when Israel won the Six-Day War against the Arabs and seized the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Today, the Palestinian people -- some 8 million worldwide, by U.N. count -- remain scattered and stateless.

Palestinian lands today are jagged, truncated locales only about one-fifth the size of historic Palestine. Split between the stone-terraced hills of the West Bank and the sandy flats of Gaza, the territories are home to nearly 3 million Palestinians.

The voices of those who lost their homes a half-century ago still quake with anger when they retell the tale.

Many have seen their houses taken over by Israelis, or torn down. They recall that the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said there was no such thing as a Palestinian. Many still live under Israeli occupation.

And the peace treaty signed by their own leaders in Oslo in 1993, while bringing independence a few steps closer, dimmed hopes for many that they will ever be able to return home. As a result of the agreement, Gaza is self-ruled, and the main cities of the West Bank are under Palestinian control.

"For the refugees, they still have this wound wide open. The prospect that they will become just a footnote to history, that no one will take responsibility, keeps it open as a festering sore," says historian Kenneth Stein, Carter Center fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs.

'This land will remain Palestinian'

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and others say the commemorations are not a time for mourning.

"We are celebrating the memory of the catastrophe," Arafat told Palestinian legislators and intellectuals in February.

"I use the word 'celebrate' because our being here is a show of strength. ... and a reminder that this land will remain Palestinian." His people are now beginning to build their own nation, through the Palestinian Authority.

Just about every Palestinian institution is marking the anniversary in some way. Laidi says many Palestinians are dismayed by the international emphasis on Israel's side of the story.

"When you do something like that, it perpetuates the myth of this great happy story that Israel was established as a land for Holocaust survivors. In fact, Israel was created on top of another country; people were kicked out, their rights were violated, so it is not a clean happy story," the director says.

"Israelis have every right to celebrate, but why should other countries celebrate as well?"

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