For Immediate Release

Mass demonstration on 11 May in front of PNA office in Hebron.

Celebration of Palestinian culture across the West Bank in Ramallah, Nablus and Jericho.

Popular festival begins in Mardid in solidarity with occupied Palestine and Iraq.

Events in Palestine

• Intergenerational Dialogue and Discussion on the Nakba and the Right of Return in Tubas. Contact: Wajih Atallah, Union of Youth Activities Centers in the Refugee Camps, tel.: 0599-255584, mail: [email protected]
• Al-‘Awda Camp, Ramallah Activities. Popular Arts competitions (Dabkah, Zajal, Poetry, etc.) with participants representing Qaddura, Am'ari, Silwad, Jalazon, Shu'fat, and Qalandia camps as well as Dar Al-Mu'alimin (Teachers' Academy). Contact: [email protected]  
• West Bank cultural events including popular poetry and a photo exhibition in Nablus, theatre in Jericho and children’s painting in ten camps across the West Bank. Contact: [email protected]  
• Beginning of a week of commemoration for neighbourhoods destroyed during the Nakba in Beit Sahour. Contact: [email protected]  

Events internationally

• Nakba and Right of Return Amateur Documentary Film Festival in Baddawi refugee camp, Lebanon.
• Popular Festival: Palestine, 60 Years of Exile; Iraq, 5 Years of War. 12-14 May, Madrid, Spain. Musical, theatrical, cultural, and educational events featuring Rene Aquarone, Azmi Bishara, Leila Khaled, Jaber Suleiman, Teresa Aranguren, Rafael Escudero, Hana Al-Bayati, and many more. For more information, visit www.culturaypaz.org. 

Report on previous events

• Hebron “Hunger and Anger” demonstration: An estimated 1,500 people demonstrated in front of the government offices in Hebron. Men, women and children from villages and towns across the Hebron district turned out to participate. The demonstration aimed to mark the 60 years of Nakba and dispossession faced by the Palestinian people as well as send a message to the PNA. For more information, see: http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1645.shtml
• Right of Return Demonstration in Aida Refugee Camp in the Bethlehem Camp: On 9 May, Over 700 people participated in the demonstration, which featured the unveiling of the world's largest key. The key is a symbol of Palestinian refugees right to return to their homes, since many of these refugees took the keys to their homes with them when they fled in the 1948 Nakba

On this day, 1948

• In the Haifa district, the villages of Bureika, Um al-Shauf, Auzeiba and Sabbarin were occupied by Zionist forces. In Sabbarin, 20 people were killed as they fled their homes under fire. Those who did not flee were held behind barbed wire fences for a few days and later were forcefully transferred to Umm al-Fahm.
• Beisan was occupied today and out of 5,000 inhabitants, only 1,500 remained.  Today there is no sizeable Palestine population in the city. Other villages in the area, al-Sakhina and Sirin, were depopulated.

Nakba Today

• Kafr Bir’im (Upper Galilee) On 29 October 1948, Israel began a new military campaign that was code-named “Hiram” and whose goal was to occupy Arab villages in the Upper Galilee. According to Israeli estimates, there were 50,000 to 60,000 Palestinians in this area before the operation, and only 12,000 to 15,000 remaining afterwards; among those forced out were the 1,050 villagers of Kafr Bir’im. The Israeli officer responsible for the operation had promised the villagers that they would be allowed to return after a two week period, but the promise was never fulfilled.

Three months after the villagers were moved out, Israeli patrols arrested 65 people working in the area. When the villagers realised that the Israeli military authorities were not going to fulfill their promise, they launched a protracted legal and political battle to return to their land, taking their case to the Israeli Supreme Court and the Knesset. In January 1952, the court issued a decision in which it recognised the villagers’ right to return to their village with the permission of the military governor. This permission has never been granted. In an attempt to ensure that Bir’im’s villagers would not return, the Israeli air force bombed the village in 1953, destroying all its buildings except the church and school. Since 1965, site of the village has been turned into an Israeli National Park.
For more on Kafr Bir’im, see Badil’s 2006 publication: Returning to Kafr Bir’im at http://www.badil.org/Publications/Books/birim.pdf

Background Resources:

• For resources on the history of the Nakba, information about Palestinian refugees, and their right of return under international law, see the Nakba-60 Resources Info-Packet at: http://www.badil.org/Publications/badil-nakba-60-info-packet/index.html
• For information about selected cases of ongoing diaplacement, please visit: http://www.stopthewall.org/activistresources/1583.shtml

For information, resources and links to organizations working on the growing campaign for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions on Israel until it dismantles its military occupation's colonial apartheid system in the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights; ends systematic discrimination against its Palestinian citizens; and implements the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes and properties, please visit the website of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC): http://www.bdsmovement.net

For more information, please contact:

Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
Email: [email protected], Tel.: +972-2-297-1505

Badil Centre for Palestinian Refugee & Residency Rights:
Email: [email protected], Tel.: +972-2-277-7086

*The week’s events coordinated by the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba. The National Committee represents national movements and networks, including the Council of National and Islamic forces, the Global Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition, the Popular Committees and youth centers of the refugee camps all over Palestine, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Badil Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), the Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem and the PLO Department for Refugee Affairs (DORA).