Ramallah, WEST BANK (AFP)
Palestinians protested across the occupied territories on Thursday on the 60th anniversary of the "catastrophe" of the birth of Israel and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The commemoration of the Nakba, or "catastrophe" -- the defeat of Arab armies and the expulsion or flight of about 760,000 people -- came as U.S. President George W. Bush was to mark the creation of the Jewish state with an address to the Israeli parliament.
Sirens sounded across the West Bank political capital of Ramallah at the start of a protest in which thousands of people demanded the "right of return" for some 4.5 million U.N. registered refugees in camps across the Middle East.
Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and released 21,915 black balloons -- one for each day since Israel's creation -- to darken the skies over Jerusalem ahead of Bush's speech to Israeli MPs.
Arab members of the Israeli parliament boycotted the U.S. president's address, and Palestinians have expressed outrage at the decision to hold the event on their Nakba Day.
Bush is "responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the region," said Jamal Zahalka, one of 10 Israeli MPs from Arab-led political parties. "His speech... shows complete indifference to the Nakba of the Palestinian people and its suffering."
In a televised speech, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said: "On this good and beloved land live two peoples. One celebrates its independence and the other grieves in the commemoration of its Nakba."
"Israel's security is linked to our independence and our security, and the continuation of the occupation and the persistence of the Nakba will not bring security to anyone."
About 3,000 people gathered in the heart of the northern West Bank city of Nablus holding keys -- real and symbolic -- to abandoned houses in what is now Israel and burning a U.S. flag to protest Bush's visit.
For Palestinians the fate of the refugees lies at the core of the decades-old Middle East conflict and has bedeviled past peace efforts as Israel has refused to allow any to return.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, hundreds of Hamas supporters marched to the Erez crossing with Israel to protest what they derided as the "new Nakba" -- a crippling months-old blockade of the territory.
Israel has sealed Gaza off to all but very limited humanitarian supplies since the Islamist movement took power last June.
Two-thirds of the 1.5 million people in impoverished Gaza are refugees, the vast majority of them living off U.N. food handouts.
Israeli forces had earlier mobilized to prevent any "provocative acts" and Israel has previously warned Hamas against marching on the border.
Hamas spokesman Abdelatif Qanua said however that the demonstrators would not attempt to storm the heavily fortified Erez crossing.
"It's a normal, peaceful demonstration. If the enemy disperses it, it will bear full responsibility for that," Qanua told AFP. |
