Thousands of Palestinians have marched in West Bank towns ahead of the “Nakba Day” which marks the 63rd anniversary of evicting Palestinians from their homes by Israelis.
Marchers in Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) held Palestinian flags and a giant key symbolic of their optimism to return home. Meanwhile, in Gaza City, hundreds of children took part in a march while holding placards with the names of the villages and towns forcefully taken over by Israeli occuppiers in 1948.
Palestinians refer to May 15, 1948 as the “Nakba Day” or catastrophe. In that year, Israeli forces displaced some 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them to flee to different neighboring countries. The soldiers wiped nearly 500 Palestinian villages and towns off the map, leaving an estimated total of 4.7 million Palestinian refugees dreaming of an eventual return to their homeland more than six decades later.
Meanwhile, organizers have urged mass street presence on Friday and Saturday and have said that “peaceful marches will be held to demand our natural right of return” to the Palestinian homeland. However, Israel's Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Thursday that some Muslims would be denied entry to Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday when Palestinians begin mourning the fabrication of Israel, Ynetnews reported.
Al-Quds (Jerusalem) district police spokesman Shmulik Ben Rubi said that access would be restricted to blue Israeli identity paper-holders, men aged over 45 and women.
Israel to limit access to al-Aqsa
Israel says it will restrict access to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound ahead of the 63rd anniversary of the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli army, also known as the Day of Nakba (Catastrophe). Shmulik Ben Rubi, an Israeli police spokesman, says only men over 45 and women holding Israeli-issued identity cards will be allowed to enter the mosque compound on Friday, AFP reported on Thursday.
He added that Israeli police will be deployed around the site in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) to reinforce the restriction. The latest development comes as Palestinians have begun ceremonies marking the major grievance and aim to hold a series of other demonstrations in the run-up to the Day of Nakba on Sunday. The event marks the anniversary of a 1948 event, when Israeli forces displaced some 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them to flee to different neighboring countries.
The soldiers wiped nearly 500 Palestinian villages and towns off the map, leaving an estimated total of 4.7 million refugees dreaming of an eventual return to their homeland more than six decades later. Meanwhile, thousands of Egyptians also plan to cross into the blockaded Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing on Sunday.
The Egyptians intend to hold a major protest rally against the years-long Israeli siege of Gaza as well. The Israeli regime laid an economic siege on the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after the democratically-elected Hamas lawmakers took over the administration of the enclave.
The blockade has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the impoverished territory. Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including the freedom of movement and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education.
Several killed and scores wounded in Gaza, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun and West Bank, as Palestinians mark Nakba Day.
Several people have been killed and scores of others wounded in the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun in Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as Palestinians mark the "Nakba", or day of "catastrophe". The "Nakba" is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state of Israel, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled following Israel's declaration of statehood. At least one Palestinian was killed and up to 80 others wounded in northern Gaza as Israeli troops opened fire on a march of at least 1,000 people heading towards the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
A group of Palestinians, including children, marching to mark the "Nakba" were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a "buffer zone" - an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City on Sunday. "We are just hearing that one person has been killed and about 80 people have been injured," Johnston said. "There are about 500-600 Palestinian youth gathered at the Erez border crossing point. They don't usually march as far as the border. There has been intermittent gunfire from the Israeli side for the last couple of hours.
"Hamas has asked us to leave; they are trying to move people away from the Israeli border. They say seeing so many people at the border indicates a shift in politics in the area." Separately in south Tel Aviv, one Israeli man was killed and 17 were injured when a 22-year-old Arab Israeli driver drove his truck into a number of vehicles on one of the city's main roads. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the driver, from an Arab village called Kfar Qasim in the West Bank, was arrested at the scene and is being questioned.
"Based on the destruction and the damage at the scene, we have reason to believe that it was carried out deliberately," Rosenfeld said. But he said he did not believe the motive was directly linked to the anniversary of the Nakba.
West Bank clashes
One of the biggest Nakba demonstrations was held near Qalandiya refugee camp and checkpoint, the main secured entry point into the West Bank from Israel, where about 100 protesters marched, Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah. Some injuries were reported from tear gas canisters fired at protesters there, El-Shamayleh said. Small clashes were reported throughout various neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and cities in the West Bank, between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
Israeli police said 20 arrests were made in the East Jerusalem area of Issawiyah for throwing stones and petrol bombs at Israeli border police officers. About 70 arrests have been made in East Jerusalem throughout the Nakba protests that began on Friday, two days ahead of the May 15 anniversary, police spokesman Rosenfeld said.
Tensions had risen a day earlier after a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died of a gunshot wound suffered amid clashes on Friday in Silwan, another East Jerusalem neighbourhood. Police said the source of the gunfire was unclear and that police were investigating, while local sources told Al Jazeera that the teen was shot in random firing of live ammunition by guards of Jewish settlers living in nearby Beit Yonatan.
'Palestinians killed'
Meanwhile, Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday. Israeli army radio said earlier that dozens were wounded when Palestinian refugees from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were shot for trying to break through the frontier fence. There was no comment on reports of the injured. There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed up to 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel.
Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the town, told Al Jazeera that he saw at least two dead Palestinian refugees. "Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli soldiers," he said. "Many were killed. I don't know how many but I saw with my own eyes a number of unconscious and injured, and at least two dead. "Now the Lebanese army has moved in, people are running back up the mountain to get away from the army."
'End to Zionist project'
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the events of "Nakba Day" in a televised statement on Sunday, particualrly referring to attempts to infiltrate Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, saying "we are determined to defend our borders".
I find it strange that all other groups of people in the world can gather to mourn their losses and the injustices done against them. In some countries it is a criminal offence even for that injustice not to be acknowledged. Yet if Muslims gather to commemorate their losses and the injustices done against them, and that are still being done against them, they are begrudged even that. If Muslims are killed, evicted from their homes, their land stolen, aid to them blocked, it doesn't matter in the world's eyes. If they are denied their basic human rights such as appropriate living conditions, food, health, sanitation, work, education, travel, and are living in the largest open air prison in the world, it simply doesn't matter. Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji3oon.
Last edited by Insaanah; 05-16-2011 at 09:18 PM.
Reason: spelling
Stunningly beautiful adhaan from the Dome of the Rock in Masjid ul Aqsa Download (right click and choose "save target/link as").
This is a clear message for mankind in order that they may be warned thereby, and that they may know that He is only One God, and that those of understanding may take heed (14:52)
Indeed Allah knows, and you know not (16: 74, part)
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