[News] Palestinians in Israel mark 73 years since Nakba, affirming right of return

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-israel-nakba-marked-right-return
Palestinians
in Israel mark 73 years since Nakba, affirming right of returnApril 15, 2021
------------------------------

As Israel celebrates independence day, Palestinian citizens participate in
the annual March of Return

Palestinians demonstrate along the controversial separation barrier at the
western entrance of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, marking the
72nd anniversary of the Nakba, 16 May 2020 (AFP)

Published date: 15 April 2021 15:57 UTC | Last update: 30 mins 20 secs ago

As Israel celebrated its independence day on Thursday, hundreds of the
country's Palestinian citizens marched to commemorate the anniversary of
1948's Nakba, in which some 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their
homes to make way for the creation of the state of Israel.

The event has come to define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Armed
clashes began in late 1947, after the UN passed a resolution dividing the
land between Jews and Palestinians, then escalated in 1948, when the new
Israeli state was proclaimed.

Zionist armed militias forced Palestinians from their land amid the
creation of Israel on 15 May.

Israel began celebrating its 73rd independence day on Wednesday evening, in
accordance with the Hebrew calendar.

Coinciding with the celebrations, Palestinian citizens of Israel, whose
families were uprooted in the 1948 war, visited several destroyed towns and
villages that once housed their ancestors, reiterating, as they have done
for decades, their desire to return.

The Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Displaced (ADRID), the
organiser of the annual March of Return, which first started 24 years ago,
called people on Thursday to participate in online demonstrations and
activities due to the Covid-19 restrictions.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-is-nakba-palestine-israel-conflict-explained-1948>

What is the Nakba? Day of catastrophe for Palestinians, explained

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/what-is-nakba-palestine-israel-conflict-explained-1948>

But many in-person demonstrations went ahead regardless.

Palestinians walked to Damon, a village near Acre on the Mediterranean
coast that was destroyed in 1948, Wafa
<https://wafa.ps/Pages/Details/21844>reported,
raising Palestinian flags and giving speeches near a well that has remained
intact.

Demonstrations also took place in Umm az-Zinat, Saffuriya, al-Bassa, Lajjun
and Malul, former Palestinian towns across the country that now lie beneath
Israeli farm settlements.

Palestinians inside Israel raised placards bearing the slogan “Their
independence day is our Nakba day,” and performed cultural activities such
as the storied Dabke dance
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/art-palestinian-dabke>.

Tarek Shabayteh, whose family are from the town of Hittin, near Nazareth,
told Arab48
<https://www.arab48.com/%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9/2021/04/15/%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%82-%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%86>:
“Hittin has been subjected to harm and vandalism since the Nakba, and the
preservation of Hittin mosque was a great challenge… in addition to the
long struggles to preserve the village cemetery.”

ADRID <https://www.facebook.com/ADDPR/>called on Palestinians inside Israel
to display the name of their families' destroyed villages and to raise
Palestinian flags on rooftops, terraces and balconies.

"Let everyone know that there is no substitute for the legitimate, human
and legal right of return, which was guaranteed by the international legal
bodies, especially Resolution 194
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/seven-decades-after-resolution-194-why-havent-palestinian-refugees-returned-home>
issued by the United Nations," ADRID said in a statement, "and to prove to
the whole world that the Palestinian people refuse to forget and give up
the right of return."
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