Yisrael Beiteinu seeks to criminalise marking the Nakba

[ 15/05/2009 - 07:19 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)--

Ehud Barak, the Israeli war minister ordered a general closure on West Bank on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the Nakba, while Lieberman threatened criminalising the marking of Nakba.

Thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank marked, on Thursday, the Nakba which took place 61 years ago when Palestinians were uprooted from their towns and villages, on the ruins of which the state of "Israel" was founded by European Jews.

On Friday Palestinians in Gaza held demonstrations and rallies to mark the Nakba and called for the right of Palestinians to return to the towns and villages they were uprooted from. Refugees constitute a large proportion of densely populated strip, the towns and villages of whom are a stone's throw away.

Palestinians living in 1948-occupied Palestine marked the Nakba on Friday by holding a large event at Kafr Kanna under the slogan "Endurance and Return"; endurance by 1948-Palestinians who are always threatened by transfer and return of refugees to their home towns and villages.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Yisrael Beiteinu of Avigdor Lieberman said that it plans banning 1948-Palestinians from marking the Nakba.

The party said that that the new law would impose a 3-year prison sentence on any Israeli-Palestinian marking the Nakba.

Nakba generation hand down documents and keys to grandchildren

 [ 15/05/2009 - 09:40 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Palestinian Refugees who witnessed the Nakba in 1948 marked the Nakba by going to nearest mountain in the northern Gaza Strip that overlooks the villages and towns they were uprooted from accompanied by their grandchildren.

The elderly people told their grandchildren about their villages and homes and in a symbolic ceremony handed down the keys and title deeds to homes and land they owned in those villages.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians marched in different parts of the Gaza Strip after the Friday prayers to mark the 61st anniversary of the Nakba.

Participants in the marches carried placards calling for the return of refugees to their home towns and villages from which they were uprooted and an end to the siege imposed on Gaza by the Israeli occupation.

They expressed support for continued resistance as a way to restore rights usurped by the occupiers.

Bahar: Israel was established following bloody massacres

[ 16/05/2009 - 10:32 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the acting speaker of the PLC, said on Friday that Israel was established following "bloody massacres" in lines of the Palestinian people in Deir Yassin and Kafr Kassem, highlighting that resisting the occupation is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine religions and cannot be dropped by prescription.

In a speech delivered following a massive march organized by Hamas in northern Gaza, Dr. Bahar stressed the Palestinian people’s adherence to the right of return, saying that the grandchildren did not give up the house keys they inherited from their ancestors and still carry their messages.

The acting speaker warned that there is a calamity in occupied Jerusalem where its people are displaced and its lands are stolen for expanding settlement outposts and digging tunnels beneath the Aqsa Mosque, adding that after the Annapolis conference, 60,000 Jewish housing units were built on occupied Palestinian lands.     He called on the American administration not to turn a blind eye to the massacre that was committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli displacement of 6,000,000 Palestinians all over the world, warning that the Arab and Muslim nation would revolt if US president Barack Obama decided to follow the steps of his predecessor.   The Palestinian lawmaker deplored the Pope of the Vatican for visiting Israel and the family of Israeli captive soldier Gilad Shalit while ignoring the suffering of the Gaza people and the families of 11,000 prisoners in Israeli jails, inviting the Pope to visit Gaza to see the holocaust committed by the Jews there.   The lawmaker also held Britain fully responsible for the tragedy of the Palestinian people because it gave the Jews the right to occupy Palestine.

In another context, Maan Bashour, the secretary-general of the popular campaign to support Palestine and Iraq, said that the day of the Nakba is not for howling and wailing, but a day for determination and steadfastness in the face of the Israeli occupation and aggression on the Palestinian people, and for the restoration of the Palestinian national unity.

In a speech delivered at the cemetery of Palestinian martyrs in Chatila, south of Beirut, Bashour urged the Arab and Islamic Ummah (Nation) to assume its responsibilities fully and work on saving Jerusalem and its people from the Zionist threats.

Nakba Day…"They Killed Anyone They Saw"

By  Khalid Amayreh

OCCUPIED WEST BANK --

Mohammed al-Saghir Abu Sharar was 37 when the Hagana and other Jewish terrorist gangs attacked al-Dawayema, a village located 18 kilometers northwest of Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1948.

"When they came they started killing the civilian population en mass, men, women and children," recalls Mohammed, now nearly 100-year-old.

"They killed anyone they saw. They broke the heads of children and cut open the bellies of women with bayonets. They even raped some women before murdering them."

Palestinian Refugees…Nation in Diaspora

Mohammed said one of the bloodiest chapters of that day took place in the mosque.

"It was Friday and many elderly people had already gone to the local mosque for the congregational prayer," he remembers.

"About two hours before the prayers, around 10:00 or 10:30 a.m., a number of vehicles carrying gunmen arrived. They sprayed everyone with bullets, killing all the 75 elderly people. Not a single one survived," he added with tears in his eyes.

"They then started going into the houses, killing entire families. The killings forced people to flee eastward. However, the Hagana men pursued the fleeing civilians, killing more people."

In his book "All That Remains," Walid al-Khalid, a Palestinian historian of impeccable credentials, wrote that al-Dawayema had a population of 3710 in 1945.

The world marks on May 15 the "Nakba Day," when Israel was created on the rubble of their country.

On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Menachem Begin's Irgun militant group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist militants and 70,000 Palestinians fled.

On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of Jaffa, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.

On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel, Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Zionist militants and only about 4,500 of its population remained.

No Shelter

Mohammed, who now lives with his family at the small village of al-Majd, about 7 kilometers southwest of al-Dawayema, says dozens of families had sought shelter at a big cave called "Turel Zagh".

"The Jews told them to come out and get into a row and start to walk. And when they started walking, they sprayed them with machinegun fire from two sides," he adds.

"One woman, the wife of Mir’ie Freih, survived the massacre by pretending to be dead."

Mohammed said the victims of the massacre were later buried inside the Bir al-Sahra and Bir al-Sil wells.

His testimony was corroborated by Israeli historians and researchers relying on the de-classified archives of the Israeli army and interviews with veteran soldiers.

Israeli historian Benny Morris had interviewed a participant in the massacre who told him that about 80 to 100 people, including women and children, were killed by "the first wave of conquerors."

In 1984, an Israeli journalist interviewed the former Mukhtar (village notable) of al-Dawayema, Hasan Mahmoud Ihdeib, and took him back to the site for the first time since the massacre.

Ihdeib told him about the people killed in the mosque and the families slaughtered at the cave, showing him the cistern where the bodies had been buried.

A few days later, the Israeli journalist brought workers who dug and discovered bones and skulls.

In 1955, the Jewish settlement of Amatzya was built on the ruins of al-Dawayema.

Aharon Zisling, Israel's first agriculture minister, had likened the massacre, codenamed "Operation Yo’av", to Nazi crimes.

Living Memory

A few years ago, Mohammed and his family visited the ruinous cite of his village where his father, mother, grandfather and their ancestors are buried.

"I stood their crying. I saw our home, badly dilapidated. I saw the chamber where my father used to receive guests. I saw the abandoned wells of water."

The century-old Palestinian still hopes he would be allowed to live in his old home village.

"My wish has remained unchanged, it is to return to my village, to die and be buried there."

Asked further if he would accept compensation for his lost property, he lapsed into a moment of silence before answering.

"It is not a matter of property and compensation," he said.

"This is my country, my history, my home, my childhood memories. My forefathers and foremothers are buried there. Would you trade the grave of your father for all the money in the world?"