Palestinians mark 65th anniversary of Nakba

15/05/2013| IslamWeb

Palestinians are marking the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Arabs were forced out of their homes and into exile.

Sirens were sounded for 65 seconds and demonstrations took place at midday local time in Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Jericho to mark the day.
In Jerusalem, at around 11am people started to gather and then at 11.30am they walked from Manara Square with marching bands, Jane Ferguson reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their villages during the war that established Israel in 1948, an event they commemorate every year as their Nakba Day, Arabic for "catastrophe".

Abbas said that the Palestinian right to an "independent state" had been affirmed by "countries all over the world" and called on the Israeli government to show its positive intentions during negotiations by releasing Palestinian prisoners.

'Right of return'

Palestinians have maintained for six decades that Arabs who either fled or were expelled from their homes during the fighting that followed Israel's 1948 creation, as well as all their descendants, all have the right to reclaim former properties in what is now Israel.

The uprooted Palestinians and their offspring, now numbering several million people, cite United Nations resolutions in claiming the right to return to the property they left behind.

The fate of Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian claim to what they call "the Right of Return" is an explosive issue that has loomed large in the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks over the past two decades.

In previous rounds of negotiations, several ideas were floated, including allowing for a limited return of refugees to what is now Israel and settling the rest in a future Palestinian state and third countries along with compensation.

Talks broke off four years ago.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian children wearing traditional clothes, wave their national flags as they take part in a march to mark the 65th anniversary of Nakba, at Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the port-city of Sidon, southern Lebanon, May 14, 2013.

Al-Jazeera