On the eve of the 58th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe day), Israeli ‘Defence’ Minister Amir Peretz bragged on Sunday of the success of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in shooting dead four unarmed Palestinians and extra-judicially killing two activists in northern West Bank, in the second bloody operation since he assumed his duties eight days previously.
The IOF soldiers shot dead a sixth Palestinian in Qabatiya while dispersing protesters during a raid into the northern West Bank village, the Palestine Media Centre (PMC) reported on Monday.
Palestinian medics and security sources said two of the six killed in Qabatiya were civilians and four anti-occupation activists of whom only one was armed.
The bloodshed was the worst for a single day since the IOF killed eight Palestinians in a Gaza air raid on April 8.
The Israeli minister’s office said: ‘Peretz personally approved the operation last week, and closely followed its execution.’
Peretz himself praised as ‘a very important achievement in the war on terror’ an operation in which IOF, police and Shin Bet troops on Sunday extra-judicially killed the senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin area, Elias al-Ashkar, along with six other Palestinians.
‘It goes along with our policy, according to which we will continue to fight terror while easing the conditions on the Palestinian public,’ Peretz asserted.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas condemned the Israeli operation as a crime and called on the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators to intervene.
In a statement, Abbas said: ‘Such a dangerous escalation will lead to more violence and instability, calling upon the international community, namely the Quartet to immediately intervene to stop this dangerous escalation.’
Islamic Jihad was also quick to slam Peretz for ordering the IOF operation.
Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Khaled el-Batsh said: ‘Peretz proved that he is no less of a preying hawk than his predecessor, and he too will be held accountable for his policies, which will result in the death of Israeli citizens in retaliatory attacks that the Palestinian resistance groups are sure to carry out in response to the crime in Jenin.’
Similarly Mushir al-Masri, a newly-elected Hamas MP, said that ‘just like his predecessor (Shaul Mofaz), Peretz is proving that he is a criminal and a terrorist.’
Referring to the ‘war crime’ in Jenin on Sunday, he said: ‘The world must intervene to stop the massacre instead of stopping the transfer of aid to the Palestinian people.’
The masses of Jenin and Qabatiya went on a general strike and a day of public mourning on Monday amid events to mark the 58th anniversary of the Nakba.
The Palestinian people under the Israeli occupation and in Diaspora on Monday commemorated their Nakba (catastrophe), when Palestinians were driven off their land by Zionist terror gangs in 1948.
Nakba Day, May 15 is the anniversary of the day Ben Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel in 1948.
In a special report issued Sunday on the occasion, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCPS) said that the Palestinian Diaspora numbers 5.1 million, revealing that refugees make up about half of the Diaspora and are represented in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory as well.
The Palestinians who were expelled as a result of the Nakba is about 750,000 persons in addition to approximately 350,000 persons in 1967.
President of PCBS, Loay Shabaneh, reported that the immediate results of the Nakba were the occupation of more than three quarters of Palestine land, destruction of 531 localities and displacement and expulsion of about 85 per cent of the Palestinian population.
The population of the Palestinian Territory is estimated to be 3.88 million at mid 2006, with 2.44 million in the West Bank and 1.44 million in the Gaza Strip.
The estimated population of the Palestinian Territory by mid 2010 is 4.4 million, with 2.7 million in the West Bank and 1.7 million in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinian people in the Jerusalem governorate is 407,000 persons, of which about 254,000 live in those parts of Jerusalem, which were annexed by Israel in 1967.
Shabaneh shed the light on the Palestinians in Israel, revealing that they are still keeping their ‘Palestinianism’ in terms of identity and national loyalty despite living and residing in their homeland within Israel.
‘The Palestinian people kept their Palestinian Identity and national loyalty despite displacement of half of their population from their homeland,’ he said.
‘The estimate of the number of Palestinians who remained in their homeland in the 1948 territories after the Nakba is 154,000 persons, compared to 1.13 million persons in the 58th anniversary of the Nakba.
‘The sex ratio is 103.4 males per 100 females, and the percentage of persons aged less than 15 years is 41.2 per cent of total population, compared with 3.1 per cent aged 65 years and over,’ PCBS said.
The data revealed that about 25 per cent of the Palestinians in Israel were recently exposed to at least one kind of property confiscation. Even after the Nakba, 15.1 per cent of Palestinians who are still behind the green line are considered to be displaced.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said on Sunday: ‘We always demanded Israel’s recognition of Palestinian rights and the establishment of a Palestinian state, and if Israel recognises these principles, then we will decide on our position on the matter.’
Speaking at a two-day conference in Gaza on Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, to mark the 58th anniversary of the Nakba, Haniya said: ‘The occupation gambled on our elders dying and our young forgetting, but the reality is that our people are still struggling and the young are bringing about one revolution after another.’
Haniya devoted part of his speech to Israel’s Palestinian Arabs, saying: ‘The Palestinians in the territories captured in 1948 have maintained their identity and are renovating mosques and places of ritual for Muslims and Christians.’
Sounding optimistic, Haniya told the conference: ‘The Zionist project is on the wane and its principles are becoming shaky.
‘Meanwhile, the Palestinian and Arab project in Palestine is in an upward momentum, the results of which will be liberation of the land and Jerusalem and the realization of the right of return.
‘We saw what happened to the occupation in Sinai, Lebanon and Jordan and the withdrawal from Gaza, and they are also considering additional withdrawals from the West Bank.
‘All of this proves that there is a decline in the settlements project and an undermining of the occupation mentality, and that the occupation leaders can no longer defend this project, which is built on falsehood and on depriving others of their rights.’
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) convened in a special session on Monday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of the Nakba.
