| Commemorations of al-Nakba Palestine and Israel Events to commemorate al-Nakba began across Palestine on May 11, four days before the anniversary. In Bethlehem and the main cities of theWest Bank and the Gaza Strip, school students, teachers and politicians as well as religious leaders marched affirming the right of return for the 4.7 million refugees within and outside Palestine. "Our message this year is that we will return, we will start to implement laws of right of return, we will march to Israeli checkpoints demanding to go home. We are working day and night to achieve our goal, the Right of Return to the villages we were expelled from in 1948," Monther Amria, head of the Nakba Committee in Bethlehem told the Palestine News Network (PNN). Palestinian Legislative Council Member Mohamed al-Laham said in an interview with PNN that the most important characteristic of these activities is the steadfast demand for the right of return, which is guaranteed by international law and UN Resolution 194. Al-Laham stressed that Israel must understand that its military power will not be able to erase the memory of the Nakba and the anniversary of the tragedy. "They can kill and destroy but our people will continue to demand their rights. We call upon the international community to achieve justice for the Palestinian people after 63 years of displacement," al-Laham concluded. The 1.5 million Palestinians who still live in Israel also held actions. "Our hope and dream is to achieve the Palestinian Arab state with Jerusalem as its capital," said Mohamed Naf'e of the Communist Party of Israel. This year's actions took place in defiance of a new Israeli law criminalizing the commemoration of the Nakba. This law was passed by the Israeli Knesset in March and denies funding to any organization, institution or municipality that commemorates the founding of the Israeli state as a day of mourning. Demonstrators also faced stepped up levels of repression by Israeli Occupation Forces. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed forces to seal off the West Bank for 24 hours, starting at midnight Saturday. It is reported that Israeli forces deployed nearly 10,000 policemen and soldiers especially in East Jerusalem and in the 1948 territories. On May 15, about 1,000 Palestinians and supporters who rallied near Beit Hanoun and the Eriz border crossing in southern Gaza were injured when Israeli Occupation Forces opened fire with guns and artillery. Agencies report that 82 were injured and an 18-year-old youth was killed. Also that day, Palestinian youth confronted Israeli Occupation Forces near Ramallah in the central West Bank. Elsewhere in the West Bank, an estimated 1,000 demonstrators marched to the Qalandia checkpoint established by Israeli forces as the main border crossing between the West Bank and what is now Israel (Qalandia's location encroaches about 5 km east of the internationally-agreed 1967 armistice line, and thus indicates a land grab by Israel if established as an actual border). At least five Palestinian youth were injured when Israeli forces fired live rounds at them. Dozens more people were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas. Medics told Ma'an news agency that the tear-gas being used was different from the regular variety used by the military, and had caused at least 20 to go into seizures, with about half losing consciousness for at least half an hour. In Jerusalem, a Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli forces in East Jerusalem on May 13 and died the following day. On May 15, clashes with Israeli forces erupted following his funeral. Israeli forces invaded civilians' houses and abducted a number of Palestinian youth, agencies report. According to witnesses, Israeli soldiers detained a number of Palestinian youth under the pretext of throwing stones and empty bottles at Israeli forces in the town of Silwan. On Saturday, May 14, thousands of residents of Jaffa, including Jewish peace activists, marched and held an art festival affirming the Palestinians' historic rights and their struggle against oppression and occupation. Syria, Lebanon and Jordan Agencies report that as many as 12 people were killed by Israeli fire in incidents on the borders with Syria and Lebanon on May 15 at protests to commemorate Israel's theft of land from neighbouring countries and al-Nakba. In Syria, thousands of Palestinian refugees marched towards the village of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights, part of Syrian territory annexed by Israel in 1967. Several people were killed and many others critically injured by Israeli gunfire after entering the occupied Golan Heights, a Druze doctor who tended them told AFP. The protesters, part of the Syrian Druze community separated from their families when Israel occupied the southern half of the Golan Heights in 1967, breached the border of the occupied territory after crossing almost a kilometre of minefields, agencies report. Since the area was annexed by Israel, border crossings have remained closed between Israel and Syria, making visits between families separated by the border almost impossible. In Lebanon, Israeli gunfire killed several people and wounded 71 others at the country's border with Lebanon, a medical source in southern Lebanon told AFP. Thousands of mainly Palestinian refugees approached the border from the town of Maroun a-Ras, agencies reported. They demanded the right to return to their homes and condemned their expulsion in 1948 when the State of Israel was created. Rallies also took place in Jordan, where security forces prevented demonstrators from reaching the border with Israel. Egypt Thousands of Egyptian activists took to the streets of the capital, Cairo, and other major cities, including a protest of several thousand people outside the Israeli consulate in Alexandria, to voice their support for the Palestinian cause, agencies report. On May 13, Egyptians gathered at Cairo's Tahrir Square for a national unity rally and to mark Nakba Day. Activists also organized to march to neighbouring Gaza. The day before, Egyptian authorities demanded the march be cancelled and blocked access to the Sinai peninsula to prevent the march, AFP correspondents said. However, at least 80 Egyptian activists arrived at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing after eluding security services. The activists carried Palestinian flags and chanted slogans demanding an end to Israel's siege on Gaza, the recognition of the right of Palestinians displaced in 1948 to return to their homes, and condemned Israel's occupation of Palestine. The mass actions in support of the Palestinians underscores the changes in Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Under the U.S.-backed Mubarak regime, Egypt consistently served U.S.-Israeli Zionist objectives in the region by helping to impose a crippling blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip after the Hamas government was elected in 2007. |