[ 14/05/2010 - 09:41 PM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)--

Many people, even some Palestinians, think that the only Palestinian refugees resulting from the creation of Israel in 1948 are those living in refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or neighbouring Arab countries, while in fact a large number of those uprooted from their villages became refugees within the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948.

Although these refugees have the advantage of being able to see the remains of their destroyed villages, they cannot make use of their land because the Jewish Agency have control over those lands.

On the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba, statistics point to the fact more than 25% (about 300,000) of the Palestinians living in 1948-occupied lands are actually refugees in their country, some times living in Palestinian towns and villages that are only a few kilometres from their original villages.

Human rights organisations, confirm that the Israeli occupation authorities evade the just demands of those refugees that they should be allowed to return to their villages and utilise their property and instead introduce new racist laws that ban popular activities to commemorate the Nakba, or increase awareness about it and about the issue of the right of those Palestinians to return to the villages and homes they were uprooted from.

The Israeli occupation deals with the internal Palestinian refugees the same as those refugees outside 1948-occupied lands, despite the fact that those refugees carry the "Israeli" nationality.

There are around 532 villages and towns in 1948-occupied lands whose populations were systematically uprooted by the Zionists in 1948. 1948-Palestinians today live on 3% of their land.