Palestinians mark "Naqba" in Gaza and Lebanon

Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and South Lebanon on Friday marked the 61st anniversary of the Naqba, the "catastrophe" they see in the 1948 creation of Israel that sparked an exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Thousands gathered in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza waving Palestinian flags and green banners of the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized power in the impoverished enclave in 2007.

Some protestors held up placards with names of villages demolished by Israeli forces during the 1948 war.

"We will return to Jaffa and to all our lands," cried some, referring to an Arab town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, some 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Gaza.

"We will not recognize Israel," others shouted, as one banner proclaimed: "Israel is a cancerous entity, which owes its creation to terrorism and injustice."

We will never give up the right of return

Ahmed Bahar, Hamas

The right to return

Last December, Israel began a devastating 22-day offensive against Gaza that ended in January and during which 1,400 Palestinians -- most of them civilians according to Palestinian medics -- were killed and thousands of homes destroyed.

Senior Hamas official Ahmed Bahar told the crowd that the Palestinian people "will never give up the right of return" to their homes and land in Israel.

He also criticized Pope Benedict XVI for not visiting the Gaza Strip during his five day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank, which ended on Friday.

"We tell the pope 'why didn't you come to Gaza to see our Holocaust?' He used double standard by supporting the occupier without taking into account the suffering of the Palestinian people," Bahar said.

The pontiff visited the Aida refugee camp outside the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Thursday, where he expressed deep sympathy with refugees.

"With anguish, I have witnessed the situation of refugees who, like the Holy Family, have had to flee their homes," he said.

Around 700,000 people were exiled in this way in 1948, with the United Nations estimating that today they and their descendants number 4.6 million, of which one million live in Gaza.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

In the meantime, almost 500 Palestinians, demonstrating in south Lebanon, raised Palestinian and Lebanese flags along with portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah, and burnt an Israeli flag near Fatima's gate in Kfar Kila on the border with Israel.

The concrete gate on the Lebanese-Israeli border became a national shrine in 2000 when Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

"Our people reject all forms of resettlement," said Khaled Youness of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which organized the demonstration.

"No one has the right to give up the right to return."

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) estimates between 350,000 and 400,000 Palestinians currently reside in the 12 refugee camps of Lebanon, which has a population of four million.

Our people reject all forms of resettlement. No one has the right to give up the right to return

Khaled Youness, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Hamas on Thursday prevented President Mahmud Abbas's Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from holding any event to mark the Naqba in the tiny territory.

The Islamists and Abbas's secular rivals have been at loggerheads since June 2007, when Hamas forced pro-Abbas forces out of Gaza, splitting the Palestinian territories into two entities.

Israel clamped a tough blockade on the impoverished strip after the Hamas takeover, and tightened it even further following the December/January war.

During his visit to the Holy Land, the pope called for the lifting of Israel's crippling blockade.

With anguish, I have witnessed the situation of refugees who, like the Holy Family, have had to flee their homes

Pope Benedict XVI