Nakba day ends with 8 killed, more than 200 wounded
Palestine, Politics, 5/14/1998

The numbers were changing very rapidly and it was not easy to keep up with the final statistics of Palestinian losses on Thursday, the 50th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

Palestinian official reports put the number of those killed by Israeli soldiers on Thursday at five. But ten minutes later, another report spoke of eight Palestinian victims who were all shot dead by Israeli troops in clashes that broke out as Palestinians marked the day of the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe.

The fiercest clashes took place in Gaza where five Palestinians were killed and at least one hundred others wounded. Palestinian sources said Israeli troops used live ammunition against demonstrators who pelted Israeli soldiers with stones and empty bottles. In East Jerusalem, all looked like the old days of the Palestinian uprising. The city was again a theater for demonstrations and clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian youths. Angry youths overturned garbage cans and used them for blocking main streets in the city. Others set tires ablaze while some threw stones at Israeli police and paramilitary border guards.

Early in the morning, Israeli police forces were put on alert in Jerusalem in anticipation of unrest. They received strict orders not to allow any marches. "The police view with great concern the attempts to organize protest actions in the city and will resort to all possible measures and means at their disposal to prevent any attempt to cause unrest in the city," said a police announcement in the morning. A police spokeswoman later said that two border guards were stoned and injured. They were rushed to the hospital for treatment, she said, adding that police forces used rubber bullets to break up the demonstrations and arrested a number of suspects.

Israel had declared all the Palestinian territories closed military zones and barred entry to them by Israelis. The Israeli army asked the Palestinian government to prevent flare-ups and canceled the joint patrols that Palestinian and Israeli troops have in border areas. But Palestinian official sources blamed Israel for triggering the latest wave of unrest and held Israel responsible for further flare-up as a result of the indiscriminate shooting that claimed the lives of eight Palestinians and wounded more than two hundred others.

In his special address to the nation, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said the Palestinians would continue their struggle until their independent Palestinian State is established with East Jerusalem being its capital. Arafat delivered his speech towards the end of the one-million march activities that were organized in all the Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians started their day of remembrance with a minute of silence, followed by the National Anthem and then Arafat's speech. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who drafted a special Palestinian appeal to the world, read it out through the Voice of Palestine. Both President Arafat's speech and Darwish's appeal were read live on the radio and through mosque loudspeakers all over the country.

Previous Stories:
  Mahmoud Darwish's speech at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of al-Nakba (the Catastrophe)   (5/14/1998)
  Palestinians plan for the 1999 declaration of state   (5/8/1998)
  Barefoot girl walking on snow   (1/17/1998)

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