Friday marked the 72nd anniversary of the Nakba, or 'catastrophe' in Arabic, signifying the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homelands in 1948. 

Every year on May 15th, the day after Israeli independence day, Palestinians commemorate the occasion, typically with massive protests and demonstrations against the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

This year, however, protests and demonstrations were canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, which continues to affect Israel and Palestine, the latter on a much lesser scale. 

Palestinians instead opted for smaller scale, and online commemorations of the occasion. 

Cars hooked up with speakers roamed the streets of the West Bank playing national songs, people flooded social media with tributes to the struggle of Palestinian refugees, and in refugee camps across the occupied territory, people rose their Palestinian flags and vowed to return to their homelands. 

On the eve of Nakba day in the Aida refugee camp, one of three camps in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, people of all ages gathered under the camp's entrance, a gigantic "key of return",and lit up lanterns, setting them off into the night sky. 

"These lanterns are a message to say that we will return," Anas Abu Srour, a third generation refugee from Aida camp told Mondoweiss.