------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 24, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- AL-NAKBA ANNIVERSARY FUELS ANGRY MASS PROTESTS By Richard Becker Huge Palestinian demonstrations--in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and inside the 1948 borders of Israel-- protested the 53rd anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel on May 15. Known as "al-Nakba," or "the catastrophe," to Palestinians and all Arab people, the anniversary marks the 1948 expulsion of 780,000 Palestinians from their homeland to make way for the Israeli state. Israeli soldiers firing live ammunition killed at least four Palestinians and wounded more than 200 people, several of them critically. More than 30,000 marched in both Gaza and the West Bank. There were tens of thousands more in Ramallah, Hebron (al- Khalil), Bethlehem and other cities. Many of the participants were refugees or their descendants who have lived in impoverished camps for the past half- century. Many older participants in the Gaza protest waved the keys to their stolen homes. In Lebanon, some 10,000 people marched through the Ain al- Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon in a demonstration organized by the three main parties of the Palestine Liberation Organization: Fatah-Palestine National Liberation Movement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Demonstrators chanted, "Let us throw away the olive branch and carry our rifles to return to our land." The Ain al-Hilweh marchers submitted a petition to a United Nations official calling for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be tried as a war criminal. In 1982, Sharon oversaw the massacre of more than 2,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon's Sabra and Shatila camps. Demonstrations also took place in Jordan, Egypt and other countries. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
