Hamas organized a march to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the Nakba and to support hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in the besieged Gaza Strip.
On May 15, the 1948 Nakba will be commemorated for the 69th year, recalling the 750,000 Palestinians displaced during and after the establishment of the state of Israel.
Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands in 1948 and were scattered across refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
More than five million Palestinian refugees, whether in the occupied Palestinian territory or in the diaspora, still call for the application of to their internationally recognized right of return to their homes and villages in present-day Israel, a right which has been enshrined in international law following the adoption of United Nations Resolution 194.
Hamas official Hani Islayim said that the march aimed to tell “hypocrites” that “we are staying in Palestine.”
“On the 69th anniversary, we say that the land is ours, Jerusalem is ours and Palestine is ours,” Islayim said. “If some people have forgotten our cause, we say that we haven’t forgotten and the occupation will be forced out of our land soon, God willing, and Palestine will stay Islamic and Arab.”
Islayim also expressed pride in Hamas’s security forces for recently detaining suspects linked to the killing of Mazen Fuqahaa in March.
