No matter how long, Palestinians vow to "hold on to their right of return"

By Atef Daghlas & Hanadi Dwaikat, IOL Correspondents

NABLUS, May 14 (IslamOnline.net) – May 15 every year comes as a bitter memory of the dilemma of a whole people still struggling to regain their right to exist on the world map.

Fifty six years after what Palestinians call "Nakba Day", figures come this year as a grim reminder for Palestinians, marking the loss of their homeland over most of which Israel was created.

The number of Palestinian refugees hit five million since the creation of Israel that pushed through a mass exodus from 531 Palestinian cities and villages, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Some 640,000 Palestinians live in 19 refugee camps in the West Bank , and 820,000 others in the Gaza Strip.

Around four million Palestinians were forced out of their homeland to live in poverty-stricken camps run by the U.N. in Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Some 1.8 million take refugee in Jordan, 650,000 in Syria, 450,000 in Lebanon and 63,000 in Egypt, and another half a million are scattered all across other Arab and foreign countries, according to the UNRWA statistics.

The area of Palestine as a whole is 27,000 square kilometers, more than 20,000 of which is now occupied by Israel , according to the Palestinian census center.

More than half a century after the creation of Israel , Palestinians now have a shrinking area of only 6,220 kilometers in the West Bank , it added.

Israel has built many Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, allowing immigration of world Jews there, although the United Nations deem these settlements illegal.

The Palestinian Census Centre said the number of Palestinians in the historic Palestine (the whole area of Palestine prior to the creation of Israel in 1948) reached 4.9 million in 2000, against 5.1 million Israelis according to a 2003 census.

Neither the 1948 refugees nor the 1967 displaced persons have been allowed by Israel to return to their homes in what is now Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Decreasing

Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland 65 years ago, their families still hope to "return home"

As Palestinian refugees keep up a hope of return to their original homeland 56 years after expulsion, Israel   has a demographic reason to concern.

In 2003, more than three years after the beginning of the Intifada against occupation, the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel hit a record low since 1989.

"The number of Jewish immigrants to Israel last year dropped 31 per cent compared with that of 2002," said the Israeli Central Census Authority in a report.

The report mentioned a number of factors, including the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to western countries and the deteriorating security situation as well as the economic slowdown gripping Israel .

Furthermore, the report referred to the high disparity in the population growth rates between the Palestinians and Israel ; 4 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively.

Palestinians have a fertility rate of six children per one woman against two children per each Israeli female, an indicator Palestinians consider a natural support of resistance.

Inside Israel , where some Palestinians live under the name of the 1948 Palestinians or Arab Israelis, the birth rate is growing – much to the threat of Israel .

"Fertility rate among the 1948 Palestinians is 4.6 births to one woman, or 32.6 to 1,000, and a meager infant mortality percentage of 8.6 babies per 1,000 births," read the Israeli census report.

‘Bushfour’

Every year, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba with vows of continued resistance against the Israeli occupation forces and reiterate commitment to the right of return.

Demonstrations are held all over the Middle East , and even in Britain this year, on May 15 annually to mark the anniversary.

Some of the demonstrators are usually carrying wood-made keys, in reference to their adherence to the right of return - a reference to Palestinian demands that any peace deal with Israel included the right of those who left their homes in 1948 be able to return - and rejection to settling Palestinians in other countries.

This year, the protests are expected to be much larger, as Israel seeks support to relinquish Palestinian right of return.

Breaking with a decades-old U.S. policy, U.S. President George W. Bush said after talks with Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon Wednesday, April 15, Israel could keep  Palestinian territories occupied in the 1967 war, and that Palestinian refugees should not be allowed to return to their homes in what is today Israel.

U.N. General Assembly resolution 194 on Palestinian refugees states  that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible".

On April 18, 1948 , Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Menachem Begin's Irgun group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Jewish mobs and 70,000 Palestinians fled.

Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of the Palestinian city of Jaffa - the largest city in Palestine at that time - on April 25, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.

On May 14, the day before the creation of the Jewish state on the rubble of Palestine and bodies of the Palestinians, the city of Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Jewish gangs and only about 4,500 of its population remained.

Days before the 12,000 Palestinians of Safed were routed and Beisan, with 6,000 Palestinians, fell.

Palestinians say in 1967, approximately 200,000 Palestinians fled their homes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip when Israel launched a war against Jordan , Syria and Egypt , capturing and occupying the West Bank , including al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip (the Occupied Palestinian Territories ).