The International Palestinian Right of Return Coalition issued a press release marking the 65th anniversary of the Nakba of 1948, and called on all Palestinian factions to achieve unity and to remain steadfast without abandoning the legitimate Palestinian rights, topped by the Right of Return of the refugees to their homeland, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.The coalition, that includes twenty institutions and rights groups, said “as the Palestinians mark the Nakba day, when Israeli armed forces displaced hundreds of villages and towns displacing an attire population before Israeli was established in the historic land of Palestine in 1948, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank must denounce any attempt to void the Right of Return.”
It added that the leadership must denounce the Arab League for suggesting land swap with Israel, and for sending a delegation to Washington to discuss the issue, and stated that the internationally guaranteed Palestinian rights of Return and independence are nonnegotiable.
The coalition stated that the Arab League and its Arab Peace Initiative must quit granting Israel free concessions, must withdraw their initiative, and focus their efforts on supporting the resistance and the steadfastness of the Palestinian people facing the ongoing Israeli occupation and aggression.
It further called on all Palestinian factions to reject all attempts that aim at forcing the Palestinians to abandon their rights, especially their rights in the historic land of Palestine, and their rights to return to their homeland, to their cities, villages and towns that were destroyed and depopulated by the Israeli forces.
“Arab leaders must understand that without the Right of Return, without justice, there will never be peace in the region”, the Coalition said, “The refugees cause is an essential cause that cannot be compromised or abandoned”.
The coalition further called for the protection of the Palestinian refugees wherever they are, especially in Syria amidst the ongoing clashes in the country, and to refrain from using the refugees in Syria as a tool in the ongoing war in the country.
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“Palestinian refugees are the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, the majority of whom were dispossessed, were forced to run away or were expelled when the state of Israel was created in 1948.
This dispossession and expulsion has continued since with the second largest such event in Palestine taking place during the 1967 war, which Israel launched on its Arab neighbors and which resulted in the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
“Palestinian refugees generally fall into three main groups: Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948, internally displaced Palestinians who remained within the areas that became the state of Israel, and Palestinian refugees displaced in 1967 from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. For the past 58 years, Israel has continued to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return to their ancestral towns, villages and homes.”
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