Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza staged protests on Friday (May 15) to commemorate Nakba Day, or "day of catastrophe" when Israel was founded in 1948 and hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled or were forced to leave their homes.
In the West Bank clashes erupted when Palestinians and activists marched towards the Israeli barrier after Friday prayers. The troops guarding the wall fired teargas to disperse the crowd.
No injuries or arrests were reported during the protest.
Salah Hawaje, an activist from the nearby town of Nilin, accused Israel of land confiscation to build the wall and said the village had become a symbol of the Nakba.
"Nilin is one of the symbols that reflect the Palestinian suffering so there are 40,000 dunams taken from the land of Nilin and there are three villages and towns evacuated that belong to Nilin and the Nakba did not stop since 1948 until today. After 1967 settlements were built and thousands of dunams were confiscated. The wall was built in this area and many people were murdered. So we consider Nilin as a symbol of the Palestinian Nakba," he said.
Israel began building the barrier in the West Bank in 2002 at the height of a Palestinian uprising in which Israeli cities were rocked by frequent suicide bombings. Palestinians dub it an "apartheid wall" and an Israeli attempt to grab land they seek for a future state. The International Court of Justice declared the barrier illegal in 2004.
Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, a group of Palestinians protesters threw stones at Israeli police in a residential area in Kfar Qaddum near Nablus. The Israeli forces replied with teargas.
The Palestinians evacuated a few wounded men from the area but no serious injuries were reported.
In a televised speech broadcast on Thursday (May 14) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on his people to continue to fight for the Palestinian cause in Gaza, West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps across the Arab world.
"On the 67th anniversary of the Nakba Day I can tell you to keep your heads up despite all the suffering because you are Palestinians. Together we renew the promise that we will not give up our national positions and we will not negotiate over them. And with the help of God we will rebuild what the occupation has destroyed in Gaza Strip and we will support the steadfastness of our people in Jerusalem and the West Bank. We will care and provide security and help for our brothers in refugee camps, especially in Al-Yarmouk refugee camp," Abbas said in reference to the Palestinian camp on the outskirts of Damascus which was seized by the Islamic State and other Jihad groups in April.
In the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis hundreds marched in an Islamic Jihad rally, marking the Nakba Day. They chanted slogans and waved Palestinian flags.
Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, warmed against the new Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu's narrow, rightist coalition government, which was sworn in late on Thursday (May 14).
"The agenda of this (new Israeli) government is an aggressive agenda that has a lot of dangerous thoughts against our nation including our people (Israeli Arabs) who live within 1948 (borders). There are (officials from Israeli government) who talk about displacing the Palestinian people, other talk about turning the state into Jewish entity while some do not believe even in the so-called two state solution," Haniyeh said from Gaza City.
The guidelines of the new government make no mention of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after talks collapsed in April last year. Instead, they pledge in general terms to "advance the diplomatic process and strive for a peace agreement with the Palestinians and all our neighbors".
Nakba, Arabic for 'catastrophe,' is the day when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes in 1948 and it is commemorated annually on May the 15th.
Traditionally the day is marked by protests and marches across the Palestinian territories.
The refugees who fled during the 1948 war are now numbered at around five million with their descendants living as refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, many in squalid camps. Refugees cling to a "right of return" and their fate is one of the thorniest issues in efforts to create a Palestinian state.
REUTERS
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