Palestinians commemorate 66th anniversary of Nakba, determined to recover their rights

The Palestinians commemorate Thursday the 66th anniversary of Nakba (the Day of the Catastrophe), which occurs in a difficult situation marked by the failure of peace process, by emphasizing their determination to recover their rights deprived by the Israeli occupation. In this Nakba, about 760,000 Palestinians were obliged to take refuge in neighbouring countries. Between 1947 and 1949, more than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed, including Deir Yassine with its 250 inhabitants killed by the Israeli military forces. “They forced us, using arms, to leave our homes, and in one hour we became refugees. They killed us, took our lives, our dignity. We will never forget, we will never forgive,” told the media Yacoub Odeh, an old man who returned to visit his village Lifta. For Alla Aouadh, head of the Palestinian Statistics Centre, “the forced departure of the Palestinians from their land was synonymous with an ethnic cleansing organized intentionally by the Zionist armed groups.” This 66th anniversary of Nakba is celebrated at a moment when peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis failed. The Hebrew State broke off the discussions following the inking of a new reconciliation agreement between Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas movement.