[Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Downwithcapitalism <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 10:05 PM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] FW: 'The Catastrophe' (update) Associated Press (with additional material by the BBC). 15 May 2001. Palestinians Mark 'the Catastrophe.' RAMALLAH Demonstrators have been marking the Day of al-Nakba, or catastrophe, to commemorate the huge numbers of Palestinians turned into refugees by the creation of Israel in 1948. Live gunfire rattled through the air in Ramallah where tens of thousands of Palestinians are confronting Israeli soldiers. Ambulances have been ferrying away the injured. During the commemorations, a mournful three-minute siren rang across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Some marchers chanted "no surrender" and others flashed victory signs -- a message to Israel that they would not stop their uprising, now in its eighth month, until they won independence. Shops closed their doors and people wore black on the national day of mourning. "Al Naqba" means catastrophe in Arabic, and this is how Palestinians describe their displacement during Israel's founding. Israel marks the date of its establishment -- May 15, 1948 -- according to the Hebrew calendar, and this year it fell on April 26. Some 750,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 Mideast war. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire Tuesday, including three stone throwers. The fourth was a bodyguard for Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Islamic militant group Hamas. The army said he was killed by a tank shell as he was firing a mortar round at Israeli targets. Palestinian doctors said 129 Palestinians were hit by live fire. Fierce fighting erupted near the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Nablus and Tulkarem. At a traffic circle near Ramallah, a regular flashpoint during Israeli-Palestinian fighting that broke out Sept. 28, stone throwers took cover behind overturned car wrecks as a steady stream of ambulances picked up protesters wounded by Israeli fire. Two Palestinians were killed in Ramallah and 17 were wounded. Palestinian militiamen hiding in empty apartment buildings shot at Israeli soldiers and at one point, two Israeli tanks rumbled into Palestinian-controlled territory to quell the shooting. Hamas, meanwhile, swore to avenge the death of Abdel Karim Maname, a longtime Hamas activist killed while firing a mortar shell. "Our reaction will be like an earthquake that will rock the ground under the feet of the Zionists," said Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas spokesman. The group has carried out a number of recent suicide bombings in Israel. In last year's Al Naqba commemorations, four Palestinians were killed and at least 320 Palestinians and 15 Israeli soldiers hurt. In this year's ceremonies, tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in towns across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At noon, a three-minute siren rang out, accompanied by the sounds of Muslim prayer calls and church bells. >From the Nusseirat, Bureij and Mughazi refugee camps in the center of the Gaza Strip, some 30,000 people walked to the main north-south road. The crowd chanted "no surrender" and "the uprising will continue until we uproot the occupiers from our land." Several old men carried keys to their former homes in what is now Israel, and gunmen fired in the air. Children carried huge wooden keys with the names of towns and villages their ancestors left in 1948. Amina Abu Sadda, 55, wearing a traditional black robe with red embroidery, said she was two years old when she was displaced. "I have fed my children, mixed in with the mother's milk, the words 'right of return,'" she said as she walked in the march. Some 30,000 Palestinians jammed the main square of the West Bank town of Nablus. The governor of the city, Arafat confidant Mahmoud Aloul, told the crowd that the struggle against Israel must continue. "We must fight the killers of our children," said Aloul, whose son, Jihad, was killed by Israeli fire in a clash last fall. In his taped speech, Arafat lashed out at Israel, though he never directly referred to the Jewish state. Arafat said that while Palestinians remained committed to peace, "executioners continue to walk through the puddles of our blood with their military escalation and siege of our towns." Arafat complained that the world has stood by silently while the Palestinians suffered. He said the Palestinians would only accept a peace deal based on a complete Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in the 1967 Mideast war, and recognition of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to former homes in what is now Israel. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
