- Title: GAZA: Palestinians remember their villages in what is now Israel
- Date: 23rd April 2010
- Summary: GAZA CITY, GAZA (APRIL 20, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING IN THE STREET
- Embargoed: 8th May 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations,Lifestyle
- Reuters ID: LVA6PE6W1EI4YRWU11QC3F8X5B2B
- Story Text: Israel on Tuesday (April 20) celebrated its 62nd anniversary, while many Palestinians lamented the loss of their homes and land in what became Israel in 1948.
Ziad al-Najjar, now a resident of Gaza City, said that he was born and spent his childhood in a Palestinian village called Fallujah, now renamed 'Kiryat Gat,' in what was once Mandate Palestine but became Israel when the Jewish state was founded in 1948.
Al-Najjar spoke of how his family was dispersed upon the creation of Israel.
"We evacuated Fallujah and came down to Gaza, and most of our relatives who left went to Edna, al-Fawwar, Tarqumia. Some went to Khan Younis, but the majority went to the West Bank and Jordan. Those who went to al-Fawwar stayed there, others are in Hebron, Edna and Ramallah, we scattered to different places. It was our destiny to leave Fallujah and go to Gaza," he said.
Founded partly on the basis of Jewish claims to biblical land and partly as a haven for survivors of European persecution that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, hours before a U.N. mandate, in what was then British-ruled Palestine, expired.
But many Palestinian refugees and their descendants still view their old villages, houses and land in Israel as their homes to which they have a historic right.
"I feel that this is my country, and I wonder when I'll be able to return to it, if I'll be able to return today, tomorrow or one hundred years from now. We have to return to it. Our children will tell their children and their grandchildren, and so on. What matters is to keep planted in the hearts of our grandchildren the thought that they have a country that was taken from them by force, it was ours and it was taken away," al-Najjar said.
While Israelis celebrate their independence, Palestinians next month will mark the "nakba", or "catastrophe," of the Jewish state's creation. The term nakba is used by Palestinians to describe what happened to the Palestinians during the founding of Israel in a war when at least 700,000 Palestinians -- half the Palestinian population of British-ruled pre-1948 Palestine -- fled or were expelled from their homes. Official Palestinian ceremonies and protests will take place on May 15th. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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