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Palestinians vow to stop Israeli expansion on 72nd anniversary of Nakba

PALESTINIANS vowed that land they were driven from 72 years ago would be returned as they marked the anniversary of the Nakba [catastrophe] today.

Although activities were muted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, official bodies used the occasion to reaffirm opposition to US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” which would amount to an Israeli annexation of swathes of Palestinian territory.

A small group of Fatah activists protested in Nablus, warning US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “Palestine is ours, Jerusalem is ours.”

In a broadcast on state television Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that “those who created our catastrophe wanted Palestine to be land without people or territories and were betting that the name of Palestine would be erased from the records of history.”

He warned that to achieve their aims “they practised the ugliest conspiracies, pressures, massacres and liquidation projects, the latest being the so-called deal of the century.”

But despite all the obstacles the Palestinians were facing they were confident over the restoration of their full rights and the end of “this hateful occupation,” Mr Abbas said.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced a boycott of today’s meeting convened by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to discuss a response to the Israeli annexation plan.

Hamas instead called for the Palestinian people to be united in a “revolutionary struggle” against the Israeli occupation. saying that “history has not witnessed a crime parallel to the crime of occupying Palestine and displacing the Palestinians at the hands of the Zionist occupiers.”

The People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are however understood to be taking part in the discussion.

The group demanded that the Palestinian leadership revoke PLO recognition of Israel and walk away from all signed agreements between the Palestinians and Israel, including the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Nakba Day marks the anniversary of the date on which Israeli forces drove more than 750,000 Palestinians from their land in 1948.

Many of those families and their descendants still live in refugee camps in squalid and insanitary conditions, made worse due to an Israeli blockade and the global Covid-19 pandemic.

In a video shared by the Electronic Intifada news website today 85-year-old Khadra Muhammad Hajan al-Zuwaida explained how she was driven from the village of Dimra with the sound of gunfire behind her.

“We mourn the land the same way we mourn a child in a grave,” she said, adding: “It’s my land. They have deprived me of it. They have stolen my soul with it.”

But she remained defiant and insisted: “The land will be returned to us. If not today, then tomorrow.”

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