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Jenin to Host 2002 Nakba Memorial
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| Jenin
was chosen because the atrocities committed there by Israeli
forces reflect the horrific events surrounding the founding of
the state of Israel. |
RAMALLAH, May 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Jenin refugee camp will host a special memorial, commemorating the 54th anniversary of "Al-Nakba", or the "Catastrophe", the Palestine Chronicle online reported.
As Palestinians around the world remember the events that led to their dispossession, the tragic misfortune of Jenin refugee camp comes as another reminder of the horrors experienced by Palestinians for more than 5 decades.
The refugee camp of Jenin was chosen because the atrocities committed there recently by Israeli forces reflect the horrific events surrounding the founding of the state of Israel, and the exile of millions of Palestinians in 1948.
In a press release issued by the Badil Resource Center, it was stated that "The experience of the Jenin camp in 2002 illustrates in a nutshell the 54 years-old colonial process in which Palestinian peasants and farmers were evicted eastwards and turned into refugees by Israel in 1948, then denied return and international protection and made to suffer additional displacement in their places of exile until today.
"While international relief and aid efforts are currently focused on rebuilding refugee homes and repairing the damage caused by Israel in 2002, the bombed and bulldozed 'ground zero' in the center of the Jenin camp has become yet another symbol of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba and resistance for Palestinian refugees."
Residents of Jenin Refugee camp, the camp-based Emergency Committee for Relief and Reconstruction of the Jenin Camp and UNRWA have agreed in principle that in the framework of camp rehabilitation and reconstruction, a public memorial site should be established, in order to commemorate and educate about war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people and its refugees, said the Chronicle.
The Badil Resource center concluded by calling on artists, international experts and solidarity groups throughout the world to help contribute to this effort.
Al-Nakba, remembered May 15, commemorates the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes following the end of the British mandate on Palestine and the declaration of the state of Israel.
Jenin, UNRWA chose for the "Catastrophe" memorial, was indeed dubbed as such by Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Peter Hansen, who led a U.N. delegation to Jenin April 18 to oversee UNRWA's emergency efforts in the camp and to meet with the traumatized population.
"Jenin camp residents lived through a human catastrophe," Hansen said.
Speaking to UNRWA's medical and emergency relief teams who were distributing medicine, food and water to the residents, Hansen expressed his horror at the extensive destruction and deep sadness for the terrible loss in human life, according to UNRWA's website.
Hansen was particularly moved when he saw camp residents sifting through the massive heaps of rubble looking for the remains of their loved ones buried underneath. After seeing the decomposed corpse of a 12-years-old and witnessing attempts by the family of an elderly man picking body parts of their father's corpse buried underneath his house, Hansen underscored the immediate need for an organized effort to uncover the buried bodies.
In order to address the possibility of people being alive under the rubble and the danger of possible unexploded ordinance, UNRWA has been in immediate contact with donor countries regarding the urgent dispatch of search and rescue teams to Jenin camp.
Asked by one camp resident about his own impression of what he witnessed in the
camp, the Commissioner-General said: "I had hoped that the horror stories of Jenin
were exaggerated and influenced by the emotions engaged, but I am afraid these were not exaggerated and that Jenin camp residents lived through a human catastrophe that have few parallels in recent history."
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