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The Palestinian Nakba
(catastrophe) of 1948 has been revived by Israeli occupation of all
historic Palestine in
1967 when the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and Gaza
Strip fell to Israeli
hands. Some 3.3 million Palestinians live in the occupied
territories have
been separated from the
rest of the Palestinian refugees who were forced to move across
the borders since 1948.
Dozens of refugee camps built by the U.N. provide shelters for at
least two million
refugees.
In the last fifteen
years the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and West Bank revolted
against
the occupation in the
first mass Intifada (Uprising) of December 1987, which lasted seven
years, and the second
ongoing Intifada since September 2000.
Israel dispatched the
bulk of its army protected with endless columns of tanks and
helicopters to the
occupied territories in a bid to quell the second Palestinian
Intifada,
which rapidly exploded
into a grand mass rebellion against occupation.
Although the number of
Palestinians killed in the last 23 months (some 2000 civilians,
activists and police
officers) is still lagging behind the number of ten thousand
Palestinians
killed in 1948 war, but
the havoc Israeli tanks and warplanes have done in the Gaza Strip
and West Banks have
reached unparallel levels to the extent that the Israeli
establishment
is bent on coining other
Nakba in the history of Zionist Israel.
Under the fire of
Israeli tanks, helicopters and F-16 warplanes’ one-ton bombs, the
Palestinian
infrastructure has been devastated—1,211residential building shelled
by Israeli
forces partially
destroyed and 616 completely destroyed---, and the Palestinian
economy
battered by the
occupation’s scorched earth’s policy is on the verge of collapse.
“Throughout the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians have run out of money and are
unable to work to earn
it. They increasingly must rely on handouts, selling personal
items,
credit anything simply
to survive,” U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said earlier this month.
Unemployment in the West
Bank skyrocketed to 63 percent, and poverty rate were
estimated at 55 percent,
according to the latest report from U.N. envoy Roed-Larsen.
The occupation troops
deliberately disrupted the educational process by killing—bases on
July figures as released
by the Palestinian Ministry of Education recently—216 students,
injuring 2514 and
abducting 164. 17 teachers were also killed and 71 arrested. Israeli
reoccupation of the West
Bank in March resulted in the closing of 1289 schools, and 50
percent of the
Palestinian pupils were unable to reach their schools alongside
35,000
employees in the
educational sector, and 87,000 college students. 185 Palestinian
schools
were heavily damaged,
and 25 schools were totally destroyed by Zionist rockets. 1,967
public institutions were
heavily damaged, and 2,788 were entirely demolished.
In addition, 822 private
institutions were partially destroyed, and 1,012 were completely
demolished by Israeli
bombardment. In summery, the total
number of Palestinian buildings shelled was 9,398—half of them
completely destroyed.
Confiscation of
Palestinian land has constituted part and parcel of Israeli
aggression
against Palestinians. As
the Zionist gangs did in 1948’s Nakba, the Israeli government of
occupation confiscated
since 1967 almost three quarters million acres of Palestinian land
out of 1.5 million acres
comprising the whole West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli raids and war of
terror against Palestinian institutions included hospitals,
ambulances
and medical staff
inflicting many casualties—3 were killed, 180 injured—and damaged
452 ambulances. 318
hospitals and clinics were shelled and partially destroyed by
Zionist
occupation troops who
destroyed completely 136 buildings.
Palestinian and foreign
journalist received their share from Zionist atrocities, where 4
Palestinian journalists
killed, 219 Palestinian and foreign journalists injured—including
CNN reporter Bob Wedemen,
and a French reporter--- and one foreign journalist killed by
Israeli forces.
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