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The scene of the Israeli armored vehicles taking over the Palestinian lands remained vivid in Kardash's memory for 40 years. (Reuters) |
CAIRO — Mohammed Kardash never forgot how the 1967 six-day war changed his life, but when the elderly Palestinian refugee was shown long buried pictures of his ordeal in the aftermath of war, the impact was devastating.
"It brings back all the memories," Kardash, 73, told Britain's The Independent on Tuesday, June 5, which marks the 40th anniversary of the war.
In the timeworn pictures captured by a photographer from the UN refugee agency UNRWA in the days following the war, Kardash saw himself and his family scrambling to pack up, fleeing their old refugee camp of Jabalya in Gaza.
Along with faces of neighbors and friends that he can't remember, he saw his son Aref, who was only six then, and his wife joining thousands of other helpless Palestinians on the truck heading to Jordan.
At that time, little did the metal construction worker know that the war had created a reality of an Israeli occupation over his land that would last for decades.
Weeks of regional belligerency and international brinkmanship saw Israel launch the war on June 5, 1967, and quickly faced off Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Six days later, the war ended with Israel the clear winner leaving the Palestinians and Arabs in shock and the regional geopolitical map cardinally changed.
Israel was able to capture the West Bank and Al-Quds from the Jordanians, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
More than 350,000 Palestinians fled their homes in the West Bank and Gaza as a result.
In Arabic, the war is known as al-Naksah [Setback] and is usually describe as the second Nakba, the establishment of Israel on the rubble of Palestine in 1948.
Worsening Ordeal
Like many Palestinians and Arabs at the time, Kardash was misled into believing that Arab coalition forces were close to victory by listening to the Egyptian radio.
He remembers visiting his brother, like him was a refugee from the Bureij camp in central Gaza, when the Israeli armored vehicles arrived, flying Iraqi flags.
"I remember an Egyptian soldier firing his gun in the air in excitement because he thought reinforcements had arrived," Kardash recalled.
"But then the soldiers used their megaphones and told everyone to hand in their weapons and they would not be harmed. And then we knew they were Israelis."
As years goes by, the six-day war still deeply scars the region and particularly millions of Palestinians who remain at the center of a worsening ordeal, whether under the Israeli occupation or in diaspora.
Marking the war anniversary, Amnesty International issued a blistering critique of Israel accusing it of plunging the Palestinians in poverty and despair as well as violating international laws through its land-grabbing, blockades and separation wall.
A recent World Bank report said Israeli restrictions were dividing the occupied West Bank into economically isolated enclaves, preventing the already sluggish economy from growing and denying Palestinians access to half of their lands.
Protests
Palestinians and peace activists rallied on Tuesday against four decades of Israeli occupation on the 1967 war anniversary.
In Ramallah, the political capital of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian demonstrators waved flags and carried maps of Palestine before the state of Israel was created in 1948.
In Nablus, further north, Palestinians shouted slogans against the occupation and took part in a march towards the Israeli checkpoint at Hawara, one of the most potent local symbols of occupation.
Peace activists protested in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) against continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan, the West Bank and Al-Quds.
"End, end the occupation!" shouted some 250 activists Israel's Peace Now movement.
Later, simultaneous rallies are to be held in Tel Aviv and the Anata neighborhood of occupied Al-Quds.
In Tel Aviv, organizers will erect a duplicate of a checkpoint to bring home to Israelis the "reality" of the occupied West Bank, which is dotted by more than 500 such checkpoints that impede freedom of movement and feed resentment.
Israeli police banned a Palestinian conference due to take place in Al-Quds.
Other anti-occupation protests will take place in world capitals such as Brussels, Berlin, Canberra, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Washington.
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