Video of Palestinians and Syrians entering Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. (h/t Ali Abunimah)
Red Crescent: 1 dead, 182 injured in Nakba protests
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 15 May 20:50 — One Palestinian was killed, 182 injured and 149 suffered the effects of tear-gas inhalation, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a detailed report on injuries sustained by Israeli forces on Sunday. The injuries were those treated by Red Crescent medics, and cataloged in the field, the report said, noting the highest number of injuries in the Gaza Strip. At a demonstration in northern Gaza, a teenager was killed, 35 struck by rubber-coated bullets and another 100 hit with shrapnel, the report said
Teen killed in Gaza protest marking Nakba
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 15 May 19:32– An unidentified 18-year-old was killed and 125 others injured by Israeli fire during a march of Palestinians in Gaza toward the separation fence and Erez border with Israel on Sunday. The group, estimated to number almost 1,000, marched in commemoration of the Palestinian expulsion from homes and villages in 1948 that accompanied the declaration of the state of Israel. The march began in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun toward the Israeli border. A medic told AFP that several hundred people had bypassed a Hamas checkpoint just south of the border, and came within a few hundred meters of a concrete border barrier installed by Israel near the Erez checkpoint when shots were fired … Medics told Ma‘an that at least 82 demonstrators were injured by artillery shells and gunfire. The injured were mostly children, and some were critically injured, medical officials said. One journalist was also injured. They were taken by ambulances to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip … Most of the people who fled to the Gaza Strip in 1948 were from the city of Jaffa, south of what is now Tel Aviv, and the towns and villages between Jaffa and Gaza City, as well as from areas in Beersheba and the Negev.
Video: Gazans mark ‘Nakba Day’ amid Israeli attacks
PressTV 15 May — Marching towards the Erez crossing, over 1000 Palestinians faced Israeli soldiers opening fire on them. Dozens of marchers were injured including a journalist who is in critical condition as they tried to return to their original homes in historical Palestine. In a prayer sermon, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah continued to stress the importance of resistance against the Zionist regime.
Haniyeh: Nakba marked in changed region
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 15:04 — Speaking after dawn prayers in Gaza City, Haniyeh said the rallies demonstrated that Palestinians would not forget their homeland. “This is the first year crowds will march to Palestinian borders, annulling the old saying that elderly people die and younger generations forget the past.”
Ramallah medics put injured count at 150 during Nakba Day protests
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 15 May — Medics have put the count of those injured during Nakba Day protests in Ramallah and Al-Bireh in Ramallah province at 150. 20 of them were injured critically, 30 were hit by gunfire, and dozens suffered severe breathing difficulties after inhaling tear gas, sources in the Ramallah central hospital have said. Dozens have been arrested by Israeli special units. Witnesses said that the most volatile clashes took place at the Kalandia military crossing south of Ramallah, the main entrance leading to Jerusalem. Violent clashes erupted there as Israeli soldiers opened fire at Palestinians.
In Pictures: Palestinians mark anniversary
BBC 15 May 14:15 GMT The BBC’s Jon Donnison, in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said this year’s Nakba protests have been given impetus by the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa. [Ramallah, with short clips from other places]
Clashes erupt as Nakba Day protests sweep Palestinian territories
Haaretz 15 May 17:26 — …Israel fired two tank shells and several rounds from machine guns as dozens of Palestinian protesters approached the heavily fortified border in the Gaza Strip over the course of the day, wounding at least 45 people, a Palestinian health official said … Across the West Bank, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets, waving flags and holding old keys to symbolize their dreams of reclaiming property they lost when Israel was created on May 15, 1948 … In a West Bank refugee camp and on the outskirts of Jerusalem, IDF troops fired tear gas to break up large crowds of stone throwers.
Clashes at Qalandiya see 40 seriously injured
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 15 May 19:28 — Violent clashes broke out at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem Sunday, as Palestinians marched in the area demanding the right of return for refugees exiled in 1948 … Estimates put the number of protesters close to a thousand, and witnesses said young men were attempting to take down parts of Israel’s separation wall at Qalandiya, where it is built more than five kilometers into Palestinian territory … Medics said 55 were evacuated from the protest in ambulance, and witnesses estimated six had been detained. Medics told AFP that at least one was badly injured, hit in the head with a rubber-coated bullet. A doctor with the Palestinian Authority’s Civil Defense Crews told Ma‘an that 250 had been treated for injuries and tear-gas inhalation, noting 40 had been marked as seriously injured from bullet wounds … Treating an 80-year-old woman from the adjacent refugee camp, medics told Ma‘an the tear-gas being used was different from the regular variety used by the military, and had caused at least 20 to go into seizures, with about half of those losing consciousness for at least half an hour. [goes on to discuss protests elsewhere in the West Bank]
Video: Demo in Tel Aviv 14 May
Return to Jaffa: the march of young Arabs 48 on the eve of Nakba, Palestine 14/05/2011 Flags flutter in the skies of Tel Aviv for the first time since the establishment of the Zionist entity [and not all the participants are Palestinians]
In Pictures: Nakba Day across Palestine
from various news agencies
Dozens injured in Al-Khalil marches on Nakba anniversary
AL-KHALIL, (PIC) 15 May– Dozens of Palestinian citizens suffered suffocation and various injuries in Al-Khalil on Sunday during violent confrontations with Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba. The PIC reporter said that the IOF troops attacked a march in Shalalde street with gas canisters and rubber bullets injuring eight civilians. IOF soldiers were seen on rooftops and chasing school students on the streets, he said, adding that similar confrontations were reported in Arub refugee camp …
In Beit Ummar village, IOF troops violently quelled the peaceful marches wounding a 19-year-old in his foot and a 9-year-old girl.
The IOF soldiers burnt tens of cultivated land lots in Fawar refugee camp when they tossed sonic and gas bombs at citizens who responded by throwing stones.
Other confrontations were reported near the villages of Yatta, Doura, and Beit Awa.
Israeli military kidnap peace activists in Walaja
IMEMC 15 May — Israeli soldiers detained 11 peace activists as they attempted to reach the old village of Al-Walaja near Bethlehem. Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a peace activist and Chairman of the Board of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People, the mother organization of IMEMC News is among the kidnapped civilians, among them a number of international peace activists including Kevin Murphy, an IMEMC volunteer.
The peace activists joined villagers from Al-Walaja who were trying to reach the lands of the old Walaja village. Israel does not allow the villagers of Al-Walaja to enter their lands and claims it is an Israeli territory.
Nakba Day – Syrian, Lebanese, Jordan, Egypt borders
14 said dead on Syrian, Lebanese borders by Israeli fire
JERUSALEM (AFP) 19:35 — As many as 14 were said killed by Israeli fire in incidents on the Syrian and Lebanese borders on Sunday, as Palestinians marked the 63rd anniversary of the expulsion from their homes. Two people were killed and four critically hurt by the gunfire after protesters from Syria entered the occupied Golan Heights, a Druze doctor who tended them told AFP, while other reports said four had been killed … The protesters, part of the Syrian Druze community separated from their families when Israel occupied the southern half of the Golan heights in 1967, breached the border, crossing almost a kilometer of minefields at the border zone. The United Nations patrols the area, which was illegally annexed by Israel. Border crossings remain closed between Israel and Syria, making visits between families separated by the border almost impossible … Channel 1 television reported that its correspondent in Majdal Shams, a Druze town on the Golan, said he had come across 30-40 infiltrators in its main square, some of who said they were Palestinians from Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus … Israeli gunfire killed ten people and wounded 112 others at the country’s border with Lebanon, a medical source in southern Lebanon told AFP, revising an earlier toll.
And more from a historic day from Today in Palestine:
Al Jazeera video: Shooting on Israel-Syria border
15 May — Syria’s state TV says four Syrian protesters were shot dead by Israeli troops during a demonstration on the Syrian side of the border with the occupied Golan Heights. Dozens were injured by the shooting after hundreds walked across minefields, overwhelmed border guards and attempted to cross the border near the village of Majdal Shams. Eyewitness Salman Fakhreddin describes the scene to Al Jazeera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5oIkDzrwZLM
Last infiltrators return to Syria after day of bloody clashes on northern borders
Haaretz 15 May 19:46 — The last of the protesters who infiltrated across the border into Israel from Syria on Sunday have been returned to Syria by Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Israel police. Two demonstrators were killed in the incident near Majdal Shams on the Syrian border and between three and 10 people were killed in Maroun a-Ras on the Lebanese border … According to Lebanese security sources, at least 10 Palestinian protesters were killed at the demonstration in Maroun a-Ras. The sources said more than 100 people had been wounded.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/last-infiltrators-return-to-syria-after-day-of-bloody-clashes-on-northern-borders-1.361905
Palestinians killed in ‘Nakba’ clashes
AJ 15 May 15:10 — Several killed and dozens wounded in Gaza, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun and West Bank, as Palestinians mark Nakba Day … Syrian state television reported that Israeli forces killed four Syrian citizens who had been taking part in an anti-Israeli rally on the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border on Sunday … There have also been reports that Israeli gunfire killed up to 10 people and injured scores more in the Lebanese town of Ras Maroun, on the southern border with Israel. Matthew Cassel, a journalist in the town, told Al Jazeera that he saw at least two dead Palestinian refugees. “Tens of thousands of refugees marched to the border fence to demand their right to return where they were met by Israeli soldiers,” he said
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011515649440342.html
Nakba Day protests – in pictures
The Guardian 15 May 18:48 BST Violence breaks out as Palestinians march on Israel’s borders on Nakba day
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/may/15/palestinian-territories-israel
Video: Several Palestinians killed in Catastrophe Day anniv.
PressTV 15 May — Carrying Palestinian flags and chanting “we want our lands back”, tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon flocked to the southern Lebanese town of Maroun Al-Ras to protest the day Israel destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages and expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their own land in order to occupy them. The number of Palestinian refugees gathered at the southern Lebanese border on the 63rd anniversary of Nakba Day has been unprecedented.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180086.html
In Pictures: Ahead of the Nakba
Al Jazeera – E. Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon. Cairo
http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/20115141283124773.html
Video: ‘Nakba Day’ marked in Madrid
PressTV 15 May — Hundreds of Spaniards and Palestinians gathered in front of the Israeli embassy in Madrid to commemorate the anniversary of “Nakba Day” or the day of catastrophe.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/180058.html
Egypt and Jordan prevent protests
Jordan police use force to stop activists from reaching Israel border
dpa/Reuters 15 May — Jordanian security authorities used force on Sunday to disperse hundreds of people planning to proceed to the Israeli-controlled border with the West Bank to mark Nakba Day. The activists, belonging to the May 15 Youth group, gathered at Karameh village, a few hundred meters from the border, but were barred for the second day in a row from reaching the King Hussein crossing point on the Jordan River.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/jordan-police-use-force-to-stop-activists-from-reaching-israel-border-1.361929
Rafah convoys turned back; activists protest at Israeli embassy
15 May — CAIRO: Convoys carrying activists and aid heading to the Rafah border were turned back at Ismailia on Sunday as hundreds protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo to support the “Third Palestinian Intifada.” Activists said numerous checkpoints were set up on the road towards Rafah and no one was allowed to pass unless their national ID identified North Sinai as their residence. A number of participants were arrested by the military, activists told Daily News Egypt. “All convoys were blocked on Friday and Saturday at Al-Salam Bridge and Ahmed Hamdy Tunnel and were forced to turn back by the army. However, we decided to organize a protest in front of the Israeli embassy instead,” said Mohamed Al-Hadary, an activist who was part of the convoy that moved from Tahrir Square on Friday.
http://thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/rafah-convoys-turned-back-activists-protest-at-israeli-embassy-dp1.html
Israeli reactions
Netanyahu: Israel is determined to defends its borders, sovereignty
Haaretz 15 May 20:20 — PM says that the Nakba Day protests are not about 1967 borders but rather about ‘undermining the very existence of Israel.’ … It’s important that we see the reality and know who and what we are dealing with,” he said.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-is-determined-to-defend-its-borders-sovereignty-1.361915
IDF: Unrest along Israel’s northern borders bears Iran’s ‘fingerprints’
Haaretz 15 May — The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday accused Iran of orchestrating two waves of fighting along its northern borders, as Palestinian protesters tried to infiltrate from Syria and Lebanon during demonstrations to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the “catastrophe” of the creation of the State of Israel. [oh, right, just as many claimed at the time that the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the U.S. was the work of ‘outside agitators’, not African Americans]
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-unrest-along-israel-s-northern-borders-bears-iran-s-fingerprints-1.361870
Right-wing group publishes Nakba denial booklet / Yossi Gurvitz
972blog 14 May — Right wing group Im Tirzu published a new propaganda document (Hebrew PDF) earlier this week, which refreshingly does not claim to be anything else. It is called “Nakba Harta,” literally “Nakba Bullshit,” and is written jointly by IT’s CEO, the convicted criminal Erez Tadmor, and Ar’el Segal, a noted right-wing writer; the document purports to be an expose of the truth about the destruction of Palestine, and is full of the usual Im Tirzu mixture of sleight of hand, fiction, and deceit … At the end of the day, what Segal and Tadmor are doing is a sort of holocaust denial
http://972mag.com/rightwing-group-publishes-nakba-denial-booklet/
Other news
1 killed, 16 hurt as truck plows into cars, pedestrians in suspected Tel Aviv terror attack
Haaretz 15 May 17:15 — Incident occurs on busy Tel Aviv street at tail end of morning rush hour; 22-year-old from Kafr Qasem arrested, denies any attempt to cause accident.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1-killed-16-hurt-as-truck-plows-into-cars-pedestrians-in-suspected-tel-aviv-terror-attack-1.361806
Egypt FM Nabil Al-‘Arabi named Arab League chief
CAIRO (AFP) 15 May — Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Al-‘Arabi was unanimously elected Arab League chief on Sunday, an AFP correspondent at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=387934
Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk asks court to cancel his Jewish status
Haaretz 15 May — The author Yoram Kaniuk is expected to ask the Tel Aviv District Court this morning to order the Interior Ministry to permit him to “leave the Jewish religion” by altering his entry under the heading “religion” in the Population Registry. Kaniuk wants any official state document on which he appears as “Jewish” to be changed to “Without Religion.” An earlier request to the Interior Ministry was turned down and Kaniuk explains in his petition that he does not wish to be part of a “Jewish Iran” or belong to “what is today called the religion of Israel.”
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-author-yoram-kaniuk-asks-court-to-cancel-his-jewish-status-1.361720
Analysis / Opinion
Nakba Law: Inside Pandora’s box / Eitan Bronstein
972mag 14 May — The Nakba Law that passed at the Israeli parliament recently has a single primary goal: to categorically hide the Nakba: Hide it, do not learn about it, do not remember it, and do not take responsibility for its consequences. Put it, word and memory, back and deep into the Pandora box from which it emerged during this past decade in Israel. The illusion in passing this law is that it is possible to lock it away and bury the key at the sea along with other threats buried there recently. Paradoxically, this law, in its overbearing stance, had actually significantly increased public interest in the Nakba. The language of the law refers in its written clause only to the “public” or “state supported” institutions organizing events to mourn at the Israeli Independence Day, but within its message it aims to create an atmosphere of terror against anyone who dares to touch the event that established the Jewish state. This law does scare people; it terrorizes them.
http://972mag.com/nakba-law-inside-pandoras-box/
Why Jews need to talk about the Nakba / Noam Sheizaf
972mag 14 May — A personal journey. A childhood memory: A group of kids and their teacher on a school trip. They are walking through excavations, listening to explanations from a tour guide about their ancestors who lived there two thousand years ago. After a while, one of the kids points to some ruins between the trees. “Are these ancient homes as well?” he asks. “These are not important,” comes the answer. Growing up in the seventies and the eighties you couldn’t miss those small houses scattered near fields, between towns and Kibbuzim and in national parks. Most of them were made of stone, with arches and long, tall windows. In other places they had cement walls. Sometimes all you could see was part of a stone fence, a couple of walls with no roof, or the rows of Indian fig [prickly pear, a New World plant] that Palestinians used to mark the border of an agricultural field (it is one of history’s ironies that the Hebrew name of their fruit – the Sabra – became the nickname for an Israeli-born Jew).
http://972mag.com/why-jews-need-to-talk-about-the-nakba/
Israeli Jews should mark Nakba Day too / Gideon Levy
15 May — Were Israel a little more confident of the righteousness of its case, and were its government a little more open, then all schools in Israel, Jewish and Arab alike, would today mark Nakba Day. A few days after the celebrations of our own Independence Day, in which we lauded the bravery and the achievements that we are rightly proud of, we could offer a lesson in citizenship. It would be a different heritage lesson, the kind that includes the story of the other side, the one that is denied and repressed. Not a single hair from our head would be lost were we to do this today. Sixty three years later,with the country established and flourishing, we can now begin telling the entire truth, not only the heroic, convenient part of the story … We must know that under nearly every patch of Jewish National Fund forest rest the ruins that Israel was keen to erase, to ensure that they not serve as evidence of a different heritage.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israeli-jews-should-mark-nakba-day-too-1.361741
Israel’s Nakba Law: Is it time for civil disobedience? / Dahlia Scheindlin
978mag 14 May — The discourse around the Nakba law–which tries to stop public institutions from marking the Palestinian disaster, through funding cuts–feeds Israel’s persecution complex. Trying to legislate history out of existence means losing touch with reality … Palestinian citizens of Israel feel every shot fired at them, literally and symbolically, by the state of Israel. With Jewish-Arab relations in a free fall, this bill communicates to them: “The state rejects you and will deny your history however possible.” If there was any doubt, the discourse from the hate-spewing Israel Beitenu surrounding the law, quoted in Ynet, makes it very clear: “Yisrael Beiteinu MK David Rotem explained in a speech before the plenum that ‘when we are at war against a harsh enemy, we will legislate laws that will prevent him from hurting us.'”
http://972mag.com/israels-nakba-law-is-it-time-for-civil-disobedience/
Time to replace the memory of expulsion with the reality of return / Khalid
MEMO 13 May — This year’s commemoration of the Nakba (catastrophe) is like no other. For the first time in many decades the Palestine issue has truly found its way to the top of the Arab political agenda; that’s a long overdue achievement. Palestinians in the historic homeland and the diaspora recognise the changes taking place around them. As part of the wider Arab family of nations they are determined to play their part to regain their usurped rights. The Nakba is not simply an isolated one-off event that occurred on 15 May 1948; it is an on-going process which seeks to destroy Palestinian society, Palestinian humanity and Palestinian dreams of freedom.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/commentary-and-analysis/2346-time-to-replace-the-memory-of-expulsion-with-the-reality-of-return
An Ethiopian teen’s principled refusal to join the IDF / Dimi Reider
972mag 14 May — “Y.E.S. – Young Ethiopian Students” have published a letter from one of their readers, an 18-year-old about to join the IDF. The story of the Ethiopian community in Israel is one of the most profoundly shameful chapters in the history of the state, which deserves a separate post; but I will only say the Ethiopian community is among the worst discriminated minorities in Israel, competing in underprivileged only with the Bedouins of the Negev (the situation of the community of migrant workers and refugees is quite beyond comparison on any local scale). Nevertheless, the state has no qualms about recruiting young Ethiopians to the IDF – almost exclusively as grunts to the military police, border police and the infantry, presenting it as a first step on the scale of social mobility – more often than not a bare-faced lie. The letter is also remarkable in how it distills so many horrors of the Ethiopian experience in Israel into a handful of lines: The contemptuous housing company, the violent police, the racist teachers, the parents – in all probability, the first-generation immigrants – forced to rely on the help of their 18-year-old son; and everywhere, the ever-present racism.
http://972mag.com/ethrefuse/
Border incidents took IDF by surprise and may take heat off Assad / Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz 15 May — In recent days, the IDF extensively prepared for Nakba Day disturbances in the West Bank and East Jerusalem but was caught off-guard by the incident in the Golan Heights border area … Although there is a high level of IDF forces on the Golan Heights, the number of soldiers along the border is relatively light. During routine times, relatively few soldiers operate in the area and most effort is invested in means of intelligence gathering on the hills along the border. It is not clear how many soldiers were in the position above Majdal Shams, which overlooks the “Shouting Hill” in front of the town, but usually there are only a few soldiers under the command of a sergeant or platoon leader.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/border-incidents-took-idf-by-surprise-and-may-take-heat-off-assad-1.361885
Occupation & Nakba: Interview with Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir / Joseph Dana
Professors Adi Ophir and Ariella Azoulay have been at the forefront of academic research regarding Israel’s maintenance of the West Bank and Gaza Strip Occupation. In 2008, they co-authored the definitive Hebrew text on Israel’s occupation; This Regime Which is Not One: Occupation and Democracy between the River and the Sea (1967- ). Recently, Professor Azoulay was the subject of a tenure battle at Bar Ilan University, where she has been a lecturer in the department of Philosophy for the past 11 years. The author of 10 books and numerous articles, it is understood that she was denied tenure at Bar Ilan based on her political opinions. Last week, I interviewed Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir about their book, the Nakba and Israel’s occupation regime in the West Bank and Gaza. Joseph Dana: What are your thoughts on the recent legislation ‘banning’ public commemoration of the Nakba within Israeli society? Adi Ophir: The legal banning of public commemoration of the Nakba is a welcome contribution to the critique of the dominant Israeli discourse
http://972mag.com/occupation-nakba-interview-with-ariella-azoulay-adi-ophir/
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