Israeli aggression sent millions of Palestinians to exile, of whom a UN-estimated 4.7 million currently live in camps in the occupied West Bank and neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
On Tuesday, protesters carrying Palestinian flags and signs with the names of destroyed Arab villages marched to the site of the village of Miska to demand the right of return for those expelled by Israel.
Miska, 15 kilometers (nearly 9 miles) southwest of the West Bank city of Tulkarm, is one of more than 531 villages emptied by the Israeli army in 1948.
Arab Israeli lawmaker Talab al-Sana described the destroyed Palestinian villages as “a testimony to the crimes of Zionism, which included war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the uprooting of dozens of towns, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians just two years after WWII and tens of years before the Goldstone Report.”
Sana was referring to a UN report, which charged Israel with war crimes and crimes against humanity during its December 2008-January 2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip. The deadly onslaught left well above 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed and thousands more injured.
“People live just a few hundred meters away from the home they were uprooted from, and the pain has not eased up to this day,” said Chairman of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee, Mohammad Zeidan.
Zeidan criticized Israel for legislation of discriminatory and “racist laws against Arabs, who are living in their homeland,” urging that laws must be passed instead “to allow the refugees to return to their homes.”
Zeidan noted that the number of people, especially children and teens, taking part in the Nakba Day march increases from year to year. “All the racist laws against the Arab public in Israel just strengthen and unify it,” he said.
MRS/SC/MMA
Palestinians Mark 62 Years of ‘Nakba’ Insisting Not to Give Up ‘Right of Return’
14/05/2010 Thousands of Gazans on Friday called for a “right of return” of refugees, as they marked the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba, the “catastrophe” of the Israeli occupation for the Palestinian land which sparked the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Some 6,000 people took part in two demonstrations, one at Jabaliya refugee camp organized by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip and another in the Nuseirat camp staged by the Islamic Jihad faction. “We will never give up the right of return” of refugees to their towns and villages, a Hamas leader, Muin Mderes told the crowd in Jabaliya.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat meanwhile said that Palestinians are enduring a continuing “catastrophe,” 62 years after the May 1948 creation of so called “Israel”.
In a message to mark Nakba Day, he insisted that the refugees, who together with their descendants now number 4.7 million, have the right to return. “In other conflicts, refugee rights have been honored and respected, including the right of return, restitution and compensation. In stark contrast, however, Israel refuses to even recognize the Palestinian right of return, thus continuing to deny the refugees’ basic rights.
“No state is above the law,” Erakat said, calling on the international community to end Israeli “belligerence and disregard for international law.”
Nakba Day marks the anniversary of the “catastrophe” Palestinians say unfolded with the May 1948 creation of the Zionist entity, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.
Candle-light vigils were planned in refugee camps on Friday evening and major demonstrations were scheduled in the Palestinian territories on Saturday, including a march to the grave of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.
In Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinians also marked on Friday the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba.
Supporters of the Hamas movement gathered at refugee camps in both Beirut and southern Lebanon before making their way to Maroun al-Ras village near Occupied Palestinian border.
The demonstrators raised Palestinian flags and the green flag of Hamas as well as pictures of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassine and Khaled Mashaal, the movement’s politburo chief.
Some peered across the border through binoculars, and elderly refugees could be heard recounting the tale of their exodus to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “We will not give up on our right to return,” Ali Baraki, Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, told the crowd in Maroun al-Ras.
“The 62nd commemoration is an incentive to continue our resistance,” he said, adding “Negotiations and peace have not produced any results and clearly will not lead our people home.”
According to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, Lebanon is home to nearly 400,000 refugees, most of whom live in 12 destitute camps across the country. Other figures put the number at between 250,000 and 270,000 as UNRWA does not strike off its list those who emigrate from Lebanon.
Filed under: Uprooted Palestinians | Tagged: Ethnic Cleansing, Nakba and ROR, Palestine Days |
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 