All efforts to stop the war of extermination and thwart the plans for displacement and deportation

For the second time in two years, and amidst the ongoing war of extermination and brutal aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, our Palestinian people commemorate the Great Nakba on May 15th, which befell our Palestinian people in 1948. For 77 years, our Palestinian people have been commemorating this painful anniversary, the repercussions of which they are still experiencing to this day, as it constituted the cornerstone of the displacement of our people from their homeland and represented the starting point for completing the renewed aggression against our people with the aim of uprooting and displacing them completely. This is something that the Zionist movement has been unable to fully achieve since 1948, and today it continues it in the most brutal and violent forms with the aim of displacing our people in a broad ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the occupying state not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank, where these campaigns are concentrated on the West Bank camps as well as in the entire Gaza Strip.

In those days, more than 77 years ago, Zionist gangs, with the support of Britain and the emerging imperialist powers at the time, were able not only to steal “a land without a people,” as they called it, but also to plunder a state that had existed on the land, with its various institutions, and to displace its people, who were living in security and peace and striving for their independence, as were the neighboring peoples.

Today, as we commemorate the Nakba, we must instill in the minds of the generations who did not live through the Nakba and its woes the truth that must always be entrenched. This is what the research and study centers that dealt with the Nakba issue and the reliable scientific and historical research they dealt with have addressed: Zionist gangs, with the full support of Britain, stole a homeland and expelled its people in the largest ethnic cleansing operation since World War II. These gangs stole the state of the Palestinian people, which was already in existence and subject at the time to the British Mandate, which violated the text of the Mandate document, which stipulated the necessity of helping the Palestinian people in determining their fate. But Britain, instead of helping the Palestinian people, deprived them of their right to independence, just like the peoples of neighboring countries that were subject to a similar mandate at the time. Britain’s role was not limited to conspiracy and collusion, but rather it cooperated with the Zionist movement, in accordance with the ominous promise of its Foreign Minister, Lord Balfour, to impose all the factors of success to implement the ominous promise, starting with providing weapons and equipment, establishing dozens of training camps for Jewish recruits, facilitating immigration, absorbing tens of thousands of Jews from around the world, and housing them in Palestine, at the same time, practiced all forms of brutal oppression and injustice against the true owners of the land and deprived them of every means to defend their rights in the face of the imminent danger that was escalating before their eyes, so they resisted it with rare courage in an attempt to prevent the Zionist movement from achieving its goals, which unfortunately succeeded in achieving its project of usurping a homeland and displacing its people who became refugees as a result of the Nakba, the effects of which continue to this day, and the occupation is trying to complete it to implement a broad displacement plan for those who remain of its children in their homeland.

Today, as we commemorate the Nakba, we reiterate that Palestine was not a land without a people, as they claim. It was a prosperous country that, until 1945, contained 1,300 villages, cities, and towns, most of which had a population exceeding thousands. Until then, the Zionists had only a few scattered colonies inhabited by hundreds, which they succeeded in establishing with British collusion and fraud, which allowed the arrival of thousands of Jews from all over the world. Under the auspices and training of the British army, they formed the Irgun, Stern, and Haganah gangs, which launched a brutal war and campaigns of extermination and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people until they were able, in mid-May 1948, to steal the homeland, which we rightly call the “Great Nakba.” In this tragic Nakba, whose memory we are living these days, they stole the homeland that was established with its institutions and expelled a people who were striving for independence.

In discussing the Nakba and the stolen homeland, it must be emphasized time and again that Palestine was not empty of people, as the Zionists claim, but rather an existing state subject to a hateful mandate that played a conspiratorial role in depriving its people of independence. Various studies and research, especially those conducted by researcher Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, which addressed the conditions of Palestine before the Nakba, confirm that the Zionists established their racist state on the institutions of an existing state. During the mandate, Palestine had 1,700 government facilities, including clubs, buildings, industrial institutions, and others. Palestine was also one of the most advanced neighboring countries in the fields of trade, industry, and agriculture, as it included 500 institutions operating in various fields. Palestine was distinguished by its unique geographical location, which linked neighboring countries with a network of railways. It had 41 train stations and 700 kilometers of railways, in addition to 31 on-site airports, 6,000 kilometers of paved roads, and 37 British army camps, most of which were handed over with their equipment to the invading Zionists, who used them. In their war to exterminate our people and displace them from their homeland.

During that ongoing Nakba, Israel seized 2,000 historical monuments, including mosques, cemeteries, monasteries, caves, and archaeological centers. Palestine was also rich in fresh water resources, with 3,650 water sources at the time. In order to control all of this, the Zionist gangs used all means of genocide, including killing, destruction, rape, and burning people alive, as happened with the people of Tira, Haifa, and others. Day after day, these massacres are being revealed, as happened in the Tantura massacre last year. This has been proven by recent studies, including those issued by some Israeli writers and researchers, that 90% of the Palestinian villages were displaced, whose population represented 52% at the time, under the pressure of exposure to organized military massacres that took place during the existence of the British Mandate and under its protection. With the arrival of May 1948 and the official announcement of the establishment of the occupying state, the remaining 42% of the population was expelled. The expulsion of the remaining 6% was completed after the expenses of the truce that was signed. With the Arab countries that formed the Salvation Army, which did not save anything, Palestine was lost under its watch.

These studies also show that the Zionist gangs committed, in their war against our people, the most heinous massacres known to humanity, destroying more than 700 villages and towns, completely wiping them off the ground. Between 1947 and 1949 alone, they carried out 247 incidents of killing and extermination, including 141 massacres, 70 of which were considered major massacres and 71 medium massacres. All of this shows that the Zionist gangs, through their terrorist practices in 1948, were able to complete the chapters of their conspiracies, which entailed occupying all of Palestine and expelling its people, who became refugees, whose number these days exceeds seven million refugees, who were scattered in various directions to Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and to many other countries of the world. As you can see today, the occupation continues its war against our people, using the most violent means to achieve what it was unable to fully achieve in 1948, which is to expel our entire people from their land in a renewed, broad cleansing campaign with the aim of uprooting our people and repeating what He did it 77 years ago.

In these days of May, as we commemorate this deep wound in the Palestinian body, the Palestinian people say that despite the wounds and continuous bleeding they have suffered, and despite the aggression, war of extermination, holocaust and starvation that has continued for more than sixteen months, they have not and will not surrender to the facts that the occupying state is seeking to impose, not only as a result of the Nakba that occurred in 1948, but also in an attempt to impose new facts for the second Nakba that it is planning to implement against our people under the weight of blood and destruction that the occupying state is still carrying out in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

As we talk these days about the Nakba, we say that the chapters of the conspiracy are still ongoing to liquidate the cause of the Palestinian people, displace them and return them to scattered population groups that lack unified political representation. Therefore, the threads of the conspiracies are still intertwined through the ongoing brutal aggression and attempts to target the unity of the people and the unity of their unified representation represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization. The conspirators are unfortunately relying on the existing state of division to implement their project. This state, which has become a danger to our Palestinian people, requires treatment without procrastination or hesitation.

On the anniversary of the Nakba, it is also necessary to point out the focus of hostile efforts on attempting to liquidate the refugee issue through renewed attempts to abolish UNRWA's role. We note that the Israeli Knesset has enacted numerous laws targeting UNRWA and preventing it from carrying out its work in the Palestinian territories. The aggression has also targeted its employees, headquarters, and work centers. This is in addition to the merger plans that have emerged in recent years, which call for three options: transferring responsibility for the Palestinian refugee file to the High Commissioner for Refugees, placing it under the supervision of the World Bank, or transferring it to the responsibility of host countries and seeking partnerships with other international institutions. Targeting the camps as a living witness to the Nakba, in addition to the attempts to liquidate UNRWA as an international witness to the Nakba that befell the Palestinian refugees, which was established pursuant to Resolution 302 in 1949 as an embodiment of the international community's responsibility towards the refugee issue, requires greater vigilance and caution in dealing with this file and cooperation with the United Nations, host countries, and the refugee community to thwart this and ensure that UNRWA remains in accordance with the mandate granted to it pursuant to Resolution 302.

On the anniversary of the Nakba, the events of which we are living through every moment, especially in the Gaza Strip, everyone with insight and discernment realizes that the plans to liquidate our people’s cause are escalating at a rapid pace across various issues. This, without hesitation, requires accelerating the adoption of urgent national priorities, which are:

First, by stopping the aggression and war of extermination to which our people are being subjected.

Second, thwarting all plans for uprooting and displacement planned by the occupying state.

Third, work to implement the Palestinian-Egyptian Action Plan, which has become an Arab plan adopted by the emergency Arab Summit in Cairo.

Fourth, work immediately to implement the decisions of the recent Central Council and launch a comprehensive national dialogue in accordance with the principles set by the Council, leading to the adoption of a comprehensive Palestinian strategy that safeguards the legitimate national rights of our Palestinian people and improves the investment in the growing international support and solidarity campaigns for our people and the justice of their cause.

On the painful anniversary of the Nakba, whose chapters are renewed with what is more painful, we say time and time again that confronting these accelerating liquidation plans requires viewing the danger and its reality objectively, far from any stubbornness, and the necessity of working seriously to close any loophole that could constitute an entry point for executing the conspiracy, the conspiracy of uprooting and displacement, based on the fact that the people’s remaining on their land is the true guarantee for the survival of the homeland and its return free to its people. Only in this way can we stand firm in the face of the dangers and thwart the conspiracies. Otherwise, the repercussions of the Nakba will continue and its dangers will be more dangerous for generations that may be swept away by the plans of uprooting and displacement if we do not act well.