60 years ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their land. Thousands were killed while refusing to leave their villages behind or attempting to return. Refugees were dispersed all around the world, and the Palestinian Nakba began.
“The Nakba continues to this day”, said Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi MP, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative. “Two out of every five refugees in the world are Palestinians. Two generations of Palestinians have been born in the squalor of refugee camps and more than one-third of registered Palestinian refugees are under the age of 15,” he added. “The memory of the dispossession and the thirst for justice are being handed down from generation to generation, along with keys and land titles. Palestinian refugees will not go away. Their right of return is inalienable and is enshrined in international law”.
In 1948 200,000 refugees fled to Gaza and have been trapped there ever since, turning the Strip into the most densely populated place on earth. Israel now maintains a siege over it, making it “the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community” according to the UNRWA commissioner general.
“Despite all the promises of Annapolis, in the West Bank the occupation has now grown into a fully-fledged Apartheid system. The colonisation of East Jerusalem is accelerating, the construction of the Apartheid wall is continuing, and there are more checkpoints now than before the Annapolis meeting” explained Dr. Barghouthi. “The Wall and the segregated road system are now the emblems of Apartheid in Palestine,” he pointed out.
World leaders are currently visiting Israel, attending its 60th anniversary celebration. “Their silence about the ongoing Nakba is sadly the continuation of the international community’s indifference towards the plight of Palestinian refugees,” said Dr. Barghouthi. “But their silence about the collective punishment now inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is no less than complicity,” he concluded.