Haniyah: Nakba Marked in Changed Region, May 15, 2011

Haniyah:

'Nakba Marked in Changed Region'

May 15, 2011

Haniya stresses three signs ahead of Palestinian liberation

[ 15/05/2011 - 11:26 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya highlighted in a speech Sunday three signs indicating victory for the Palestinians is near, especially with the continued changes sweeping the Arab world.

The premier also laid out a platform based on three pillars aimed at helping Palestinians to achieve liberation.

The speech came after dawn prayers at the Omari Mosque in Gaza marking the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba.

The first sign that Palestine will be liberated is the signing of the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fat'h, parties that separately governed a split Palestine, Haniya said.

”Weakness is in our division and discord,” he said.

”Today we we are armed with the beginning of unity, reconciliation, and coexistence between people of different political programs. This opens up good prospects and is very important,” he said.

The second sign is the changes and revolutions sweeping the Arab world, he said, adding that such transformations produce regimes tied with the people's will. These revolutions will have an influence on the Palestinian cause, he went on to say.

“We live in one of these signs of victory in changing the methodology of [the Arabs and Muslims] and their rejection of tyranny and inclination to the cause and the Quran.”

As for the third sign ahead of Israel's downfall, Haniya said that the Palestinians have become more and more aware of the situation. He pointed out that those who launched the first intifadas were born during the Israeli occupation.

Several initiatives to promote the Palestinian cause have been made in European countries in the last year, the premier said detailing several events in Germany, England, and more that had large turnouts.

“We look with satisfaction at unified marches in West Bank cities, and we would like more, and [we would also like] the release of he political prisoners so we can get a steady pace without disruption to achieve reconciliation.”

The premier laid out a platform to be followed in order to achieve liberation. It included three pillars: unifying the reference for Palestinian leadership by restructuring the PLO, preserving Palestinian unity, and relying on the Arabs and Muslims for assistance in the struggle.

“Our people have offered a model of fighters and those who carry the Quran and the rifle...The day the youth carry the rifle in one hand and the Quran in the other they have worked wonders and forced the enemy to admit defeat.”

“Jihad started in the mosques, and there is no jihad without sacrifices and blood, and no freedom without sacrifices; our people have not hesitated to pay the bill of sacrifices.”

He emphasized speaking at the mosque that there is no return to Palestine without first returning to Allah, and no return to Jaffa, Lod, and Safad without returning to the shadows of the mosques and the Quran.

“We will never recognize the [Israeli occupier]...There is no relinquishing the resistance program as the basic platform to achieve liberation...We will not relinquish the prisoners cause, and we will hold fast to all demands of the resistance in order to attain your freedom.”

“Victory is coming. Your state is coming. And the refugees will return, and the occupation will reach its demise.”

Haniyah: Nakba marked in changed region

Published today (updated) 15/05/2011 15:04 GAZA CITY (Ma'an) --

Gaza premier Ismail Haniyah said Sunday that Palestinians were commemorated the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba in a changed region.

Huge rallies are planned Sunday across the regions as Palestinians mark the 1948 creation of Israel, an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," when more than 760,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes.

Speaking after dawn prayers in Gaza City, Haniyah said the rallies demonstrated that Palestinians would not forget their homeland.

"This is the first year crowds will march to Palestinian borders, annulling the old saying that elderly people die and younger generations forget the past."

Refugees and protesters have planned huge marches to the borders of Israel to demand their right to return.

Haniyah said ongoing revolutions in the Arab world, growing awareness in the region and the reconciliation of Palestinian factors were all factors which would help to end Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.

The Egyptian revolution in particular toppled a regime which had played a negative role in Palestinian reconciliation and had aided Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip, Haniyah added.

The Hamas leader said the Palestinian leadership would ensure the reconciliation agreement was implemented to guarantee long-awaited national unity.

He urged the Palestinian Authority to release all political detainees so unity could progress.

Hamdan: 63 years of forced migration, yet Palestine is still in memory

[ 15/05/2011 - 03:44 PM ]

BEIRUT, (PIC)--

The rallies that intend to march on the 63 anniversary of the Nakba towards border areas in Palestine and some Arab countries would prove that 63 years of forced migration did not make the generations forget about their Palestine, director of Hamas's foreign relations Osama Hamdan said on Saturday.

Hamdan made his remarks in a ceremony held in Beirut by Lebanese lawmaker Bahiya Al-Hariri to celebrate the signing of the Palestinian reconciliation deal and commemorate the Nakba anniversary.

"We say today, as the [Arab] peoples were able to regain their strength and change their regimes, our people today is also getting back their power and want to remove the occupation," the Hamas official underscored in his speech.

For her part, MP Bahiya Al-Hariri hailed the Arab nations for revolting for their freedom and dignity.

At the same time, Hariri criticized the Arab nations for not recalling during the moments of their revolutions their central cause represented in the Palestinian people's right to return and the establishment of their state with Jerusalem as its capital.

"Those who have ignored this cause realized eventually they were in a deep sleep, but the Arab awakening along with the Palestinian and national awakenings are ringing the bells of return to the state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital…and now, now, not tomorrow, let the bells of return ring," the lawmaker highlighted.

Teen killed in Gaza protest marking Nakba

Published today (updated) 15/05/2011 19:32 GAZA CITY (Ma'an) --

An unidentified 18-year-old was killed and 125 others injured by Israeli fire during a march of Palestinians in Gaza toward the separation fence and Erez border with Israel on Sunday.

The group, estimated to number almost 1,000, marched in commemoration of the Palestinian expulsion from homes and villages in 1948 that accompanied the declaration of the state of Israel. The march began in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun toward the Israeli border.

A medic told AFP that several hundred people had bypassed a Hamas checkpoint just south of the border, and came within a few hundred meters of a concrete border barrier installed by Israel near the Erez checkpoint when shots were fired.

Medical officials also said there were 40 injured by what was described as "poison gas," which officials said was dispersed in canisters toward protesters. They said the gas was not the usual tear-gas deployed by the military, and was causing serious respiratory difficulties.

Protesters calling for the right of return to their homes in what is now Israel, identified an Israeli patrol car, and began throwing stones and condemning Israel's continued siege on the coastal enclave, which is populated by mostly refugees.

Teenagers began throwing stones at an Israeli tank, which opened fire towards them.

An Israeli military statement said "Soldiers fired in a controlled manner in the direction, and towards the legs of the leading rioters, in order to disperse them and prevent them from entering Israeli territory. A number of rioters were injured as a result."

Medics told Ma'an that at least 82 demonstrators were injured by artillery shells and gunfire. The injured were mostly children, and some were critically injured, medical officials said. One journalist was also injured. They were taken by ambulances to hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip.

The day, known as Yom An-Nakba in Arabic, commemorates the "Day of Catastrophe," when the state of Israel was created, turning an estimated 800,000 Palestinians into refugees.

Most of the people who fled to the Gaza Strip in 1948 were from the city of Jaffa, south of what is now Tel Aviv, and the towns and villages between Jaffa and Gaza City, as well as from areas in Beersheba and the Negev.

Estimates from the UN's refugee agency said some 200,000 refugees fled to the Gaza Strip. The refugee population now numbers 1.1 million there, three quarters of the population.

AFP contributed to this report

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