Ramallah, West Bank – With sirens and rallies, Palestinians on Sunday mournfully commemorated the anniversary of what they call “Al Nakba,” or “the catastrophe” – the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of their people with the 1948 creation of the state of Israel.
While Israelis held barbecues, concerts and launched fireworks to celebrate the 57th anniversary of their independence Thursday – according to the date on the Hebrew calendar – Palestinians see the day very differently.
“Our people will never forget, and the generations will never forget,” Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech aired on Palestine TV. “On that day, a crime was committed against a people who were uprooted from their land and whose existence was destroyed and who were forced to flee to all areas of the world.”
About 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes in the fighting that followed Israel’s independence in 1948. Their demand to return to their homes with their descendants – a total of 4 million people by U.N. estimates – represents one of the toughest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday eased restrictions that have prevented West Bank Palestinians from joining their relatives in Israel but stopped short of lifting the ban, officials said.
Israel imposed the ban in May 2002, at the height of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, as a “temporary” security measure.
The restrictions, which have been challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court, are believed to have kept hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Palestinians from uniting with spouses who are Arab citizens of Israel.
In Palestinian cities and towns, traffic stopped and people stood straight and silent as sirens of mourning sounded at noon Sunday. The effect is similar to sirens that sound throughout Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Memorial Day. But on Sunday, the moment was broken by shots fired in the air by people in the crowds.
About 2,500 protesters marched through the streets of Gaza City waving Palestinian flags and carrying banners saying, “We will never give up struggling for our right of return.” Some held posters showing elderly Palestinian refugees holding keys to their homes in what is today Israel.
Hamas, the largest Palestinian militant group, released a statement referring to Israel as a “cancer” and promising to continue fighting “until the liberation of the last inch of our land and the last refugee heads back to his home.”
In southern Lebanon, about 7,000 women from Palestinian refugee camps marched, many in flowing black robes showing only their eyes and carrying assault rifles, swords and daggers. They shouted slogans calling for the liberation of Palestine and the return of refugees, camp officials said.
