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Roundup: Palestinians mark "Nakba" day

Xinhua, May 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

With rallies, cultural activities, protests and demonstrations, the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem marked on Friday and Saturday the 67th anniversary of Nakba, meaning catastrophe, the day when the state of Israel was created.

On Saturday in Gaza, several artists painted large symbolic graffiti on walls of homes destroyed in el-Shuja'ia neighborhood in eastern Gaza city to mark the anniversary of Nakba. Some of the graffiti showed a key of house that its residents left in 1948, and other graffiti referred to the right of return.

"We came here to paint graffiti on the walls of the destroyed homes in el-Shuja'ia because graffiti are the best way to send a message to the world who can easily read and understand that the Palestinians who suffer siege and destruction still have rights that they want," said Gaza painter Khaled Nassar.

Last summer, when Israel waged a large-scale air and ground military operation on the Gaza Strip, which lasted for 50 days, hundreds of houses were either completely destroyed or badly damaged in el-Shuja'ia neighborhood and other areas close to the borders between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

"We experienced Nakba 67 years ago and we have experiencing more and more Nakbas over the past years, mainly last year when the Israeli army killed hundreds of men, women and children and destroyed hundreds of houses," said another painter Mohamed Hassanein.

The Palestinian Committee to Resist the Israeli Siege arranged a demonstration in Gaza city. Demonstrators held banners which show names of Palestinian villages or towns in historic Palestine before 1948.

Jamal al-Khudari, head of the committee and an independent lawmaker, told Xinhua that the demonstration was organized to stress the fact that the endless Israeli siege and depriving the Palestinians from their legitimate rights will not help achieving peace in the region.

In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans, demonstrated on Friday and Saturday.

Medics said that at least five Palestinians were shot and lightly injured by the Israeli soldiers' gunfire in the villages of Na'lin and Bel'in west of the city of Ramallah. Clashes broke out after Palestinian young men threw stones at the soldiers, who responded with gunfire.

Since 1948, the Palestinians all over the world mark Nakba on May 15.

According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau Center, 957,000 Palestinians left their homes in towns, cities and villages in 1948, which represents 66 percent of the total number of Palestinians who lived in historic Palestine at that time.

The report said the number of Palestinian refugees all over the world are now more than five million, adding that 40 percent of them live in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, although the United Nations resolution 194 approved their right of returning to their homes. Endit