Israel troops kill 2 Palestinians in Nakbeh Day clashes

RAMALLAH — Israeli occupation forces shot dead two Palestinians on Thursday during a demonstration in the West Bank marking the 66th anniversary of the Nakbeh, or "catastrophe" of Israel's creation.

Security and medical sources told AFP that Musaab Nuwarah, 20, and Mohammed Udeh, 17, died in a Ramallah hospital after being shot in the chest during a protest near Ofer jail to demand the release of thousands of Palestinians held by Israel.

The latest fatalities brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank this year to 11.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

At Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, protesters set fire to tyres and hurled stones at Israeli forces who responded with "riot dispersal means", an army spokesman told AFP, referring to the use of rubber bullets and tear gas.

Other Palestinian rallies for Nakbeh Day were held in the northern city of Nablus, and in Hebron in the south of the West Bank.

Hundreds of people, some carrying Palestinian flags or banners calling for refugees to be allowed to return to their former homes, marched in the Gaza Strip near the Erez Crossing with Israel.

In Ramallah, where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has his headquarters, people stood in silence on the streets for 66 seconds while sirens wailed.

"On this 66th anniversary of the Nakbeh, we hope this year will be the one in which our long suffering ends," Abbas said in a speech broadcast on Palestinian TV and radio late Wednesday.

"It is time to put an end to the longest occupation in modern history and time for Israel's leaders to understand that there is no other homeland for the Palestinians but Palestine," he said.

After nearly nine months of fruitless US-sponsored peace talks, Israel suspended its participation in negotiations last month when Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) announced a unity deal with the Islamist movement Hamas which who runs Gaza.

Nation law 

On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of teaching their children that Israel "should be made to disappear".

The Israeli answer was to “continue building our country and our unified capital, Jerusalem”, said the rightwing premier.

“Another answer to the Nakbeh is our passing the Nation Law, clarifying to the world that Israel is the State of the Jewish people,” he said in remarks relayed by his office.

Netanyahu has pledged to enshrine Israel’s status as the national homeland of the Jewish people in law.

He has repeatedly demanded Palestinian recognition of Israel’s status, but Abbas has flatly refused.

In 1948, more than 760,000 Palestinians — now estimated to number more than 5 million with their descendants — fled or were driven out of their homes.

Around 160,000 stayed behind and became Israeli citizens.

They and their descendants currently number about 1.4 million people, or some 20 per cent of Israel’s population.

Palestinian chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, in a commentary published in Israel’s left-leaning daily Haaretz, said the PLO has officially recognised Israel’s right to exist since 1988.

“We are not asking for Hebrew not to be an official language or Jewish holidays not to be official holidays. The character of Israel is not for us to define,” he wrote.

But “the concept of an exclusively Jewish state necessarily implies the negation of the Nakbeh.”