Palestinians gather to remember Al Nakbe and call for their return

Source: zawya.com, 14-5-2005.‏
Summary: SIDON: The 57 years since the day of Al Nakbe in Palestine have not quelled Hajj Youssef Oweid`s yearning to return to his hometown of Aamqa in the Safa district of Palestine where he was born in 1941, seven years before being expelled to Lebanon and relocated to a Palestinian.‏
Clutching the title deeds and keys to his parents` home in the Occupied Territories, Oweid hurried to participate in a protest Friday at the entrance of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon, organized by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Committees in Support of the Return to Palestine.‏
"He who has not tasted the water of Palestine or breathed its air, cannot have known true life," Oweid said.‏
He said the Palestinians will maintain their struggle, generation after generation, until they recover their right to return to their homeland, adding it will not be a peace agreement or the Geneva Convention but resistance that will return the land to its owners.‏
Oweid blamed some countries for having deceived the Palestinian cause in the past and said he would never relinquish Palestine "even if they offered me the world."‏
Like Oweid and hundreds of other Palestinians, 8-year-old Ibrahim al-Ali raised a red banner calling for a return to Palestine in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 194.‏
Salah Youssef, a member of the central committee of the Palestinian Liberation Front, urged the Lebanese government to initiate a dialogue with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and establish a strategy to increase international support for the implementation of Resolution 194.‏
The DFLP official for Sidon, Khaled Younes, cautioned against attempts to undermine the Palestinian cause.‏
The front held a mass protest near the UNRWA offices in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp attended by representatives of each of the Palestinian factions and local residents.‏
Al Nakba, or "The catastrophe," occurred in 1948 when "Israeli" forces forcibly evacuated Palestinians from their homes in Palestine during their war to establish an "Israeli" state, causing the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians.‏
Protestors addressed a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling on the UN to defend its credibility by responding to the violation of numerous resolutions by "Israeli" Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.‏
"We urge you to assume your responsibilities and confront "Israel" through the implementation of UN resolutions endorsed in the Arab and Palestinian-"Israeli" conflict," the letter said‏
"We also urge you to play a bigger role to stop the "Israeli" genocide of the Palestinians and to exert increasing efforts to provide international protection for the Palestinian people by sending international forces to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem (Al-Quds)," it added.‏
The UNRWA offices in Tripoli also witnessed a rally of protestors holding Lebanese and Palestinian flags and shouting slogans against settlement and displacement.‏
Hizbullah`s official for the North, Mohammed Saleh, urged the government to recognize the human and civil rights of Palestinians in Lebanon.‏