Palestinians stage rallies to mark Nakba amid tensions over killing of journalist
Palestinians rallied on Sunday to mark the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, 74 years after Israel’s creation, with condemnation spreading over a police raid on the funeral of a slain journalist. The annual demonstrations across the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and inside Israel came with tensions high over the killing of 51-yearold Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
The Palestinian-american was shot dead on Wednesday during an Israeli raid in Jenin, a West Bank flashpoint. A prominent Palestinian leader wounded in clashes there, Daoud Al Zubaidi, died from his injuries in an Israeli hospital on Sunday.
Israeli police have vowed to investigate the chaos that marred the day of Abu Akleh’s funeral, after TV footage seen across the globe showed pallbearers struggling to stop the casket from toppling to the ground as batonwielding police descended upon them, grabbing Palestinian flags.
The scenes on Friday sparked international condemnation, including from the US, EU and United Nations. Late South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s foundation said Israeli police “attacking pallbearers” was “chillingly reminiscent of the brutality” seen at the funerals of anti-apartheid activists.
As Israel reopened following the Shabbat pause, local commentators joined the chorus lambasting the raid as Abu Akleh’s coffin emerged from Jerusalem’s St Joseph’s hospital. “The footage from Friday,” wrote Oded Shalom in leading Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, “documented a shocking display of unbridled brutality and violence”.
“The Jerusalem District Police decided to come down like a tonne of bricks on anyone who dared to hold a Palestinian flag,” Shalom wrote. “As if holding up a flag — a mere piece of cloth, for God’s sake — at a funeral procession for an hour or two could have had any impact whatsoever” on Israeli claims to control over Jerusalem, he added. Israel forbids public displays of Palestinian flags in Jerusalem and regularly cracks down when they are hoisted.
Al Jazeera on Sunday posthumously aired a piece produced by Abu Akleh on the Nakba, which marks Israel’s 1948 declaration of
independence. Abu Akleh’s posthumously aired piece retraced the fate of the Palestinian people since 1948, with a particular focus on refugees and the displaced.
More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the violence that surrounded Israel’s creation.
There are now 5.7 million Palestinian refugees spread across the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, the UN says. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics puts the global Palestinian population at 13.8 million.— afp