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Internally displaced Palestinians
commemorate 1948 Nakba
by visit to destroyed village with 3,000-year history
For Immediate Release
| No.
(E/13/04) |
20
April 2004 |
More than 500 Palestinian
villages and towns were occupied and depopulated with the creation of the
state of Israel in 1948. As Israel celebrates its Independence Day,
Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the destruction of pre-1948 Palestinian
society.
Today depopulation of Arab Palestinian villages in the Negev area of Israel
continues and thousands of other Palestinians have been displaced by house
demolitions, land confiscation and the building of illegal Jewish colonies
in the Occupied Palestinian territories and eastern Jerusalem.
There are more than 260,000 internally displaced Palestinians, including
their descendents, in Israel. They were uprooted and expelled from their
villages during the 1948 war and after. They live in and are citizens of
Israel although they do not have the full rights of Jewish Israeli citizens
nor are they allowed to return to their homes and lands.
One depopulated village is Endor located southeast of Nazareth in the
Galilee area of Israel. A visit to the village on 27 April will be part of
the 56th commemoration of the Nakba (catastrophe) of the Palestinian people
organized by ADRID, the Association for the Defense of the Rights of
Internally Displaced Persons in Israel.
All that remains of Endor are the walls of 75 houses abandoned in 1948. It
then had a population of some 620 Palestinian Arabs who owned 10,414 dunums
of land in the area. The village is well-known in Biblical history as
King Saul, the first king of ancient Israel, visited a soothsayer in the
village of Endor 3,000 years ago. Endor’s former residents and their
descendents are among the 260,000 Palestinians internally displaced within
Israel.
ADRID’s commemoration ceremonies begin on Monday morning, 27 April, followed
by a public rally, the 7th annual Right of Return March and a visit to Endor
in the afternoon. For more information please call ADRID, Nazareth
4-986-1171. ADRID is one of BADIL’s partners and a member of the world-wide
Right of Return Coalition.
ADRID will be joined in the Right of Return march by Zochrot, an Israeli
organization for raising Jewish-Israel awareness of the Nakba and
Palestinian refugee rights. Zochrot, on 26 April (20:00- 23:00), is holding
a public discussion in Tel Aviv on the question of celebrating independence
vs. the Nakba. For more information on Zochrot’s 26 April program and visit
on the morning of 27 April to displaced Palestinians from Miske, call Eitan
at 056-314229.
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