3rd Webinar of Return Week II Shows Strong Commitment of Younger Palestinian Generations to Inalienable Right of Return

3rd Webinar of Return Week II Shows Strong Commitment of Younger Palestinian Generations to Inalienable Right of Return

The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) held today the third webinar of Return Week2, which highlighted the importance of the right of return for younger generations and descendents of Palestinian refugees.

The webinar provided testimonies from descendents of Palestinian refugees about the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 and how it affected Palestinian daily life and traditions.

Chairwoman of the webinar Batool Subeiti started by a brief introduction of the significance of ‘My Return Week’, which aims to raise awareness about the inalienable right of return for Palestinian refugees.

 

For more information about Return Week II please visit: 

https://prc.org.uk/en/event/ReturnWeek

 

Batool said ‘Return Week II’ provides a platform to a plethora of activists, academics, and political commentators speaking up for Palestinians’ inalienable rights and discussing pro-Palestine outreach policy and advocacy mechanisms seeking to enable Palestinian refugees to exercise their right of return through international laws and conventions.

Batool said Palestinians’ right of return is about “humanity’s right to not exceed the boundaries of human rights”. Denying Palestinians’ right of return means ultimately legitimizing the occupation, she said.

The first speaker Janna Jihad, an activist from the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, in the occupied West Bank, referred to the Nakba of 1948, when Israeli occupation massacred people, erased entire Palestinian villages and led to the dispersal of millions of refugees around the world.

She referred to the story of Palestinian elderly women who spoke about the tragic consequences of the Nakba. Now many Palestinian refugees’ are living on food given to them by the UN, dreaming to go back to their houses with their keys tied to the necklaces in their necks.

Janna said she made a video about a lady called Halima. She’s 83 and left her village during the Nakba of 1948. The story highlighted the vital role played by collective memory in teaching the Palestinian narrative and traditions to the next generations.

Palestinian activist and musician Mariam Afifi from occupied Jerusalem, said the origin of the Palestinian refugees’ tragedy lies in the birth of the Zionist movement back in the 19th.

Mariam said the Palestinians have been the victims of a violent colonialist agenda that aimed to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian natives of the land and turn them into refugees.

She said in order for the Palestinians to retrieve their right of return, EU countries should be pressurized to cease support to the Israeli occupation.

According to Mariam the refugees’ plight is the most complicated issue in the modern world. The Palestinians still dream to go back to the land of their forebears.

Palestinian activist Enas Ghanam, director of “We Are Not Numbers” Project, shed the light on Palestinians’ sufferings under the Israeli occupation, particularly in the blockaded Gaza Strip, which is known as the world’s “largest open-air prison”.

Enas said the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are denied their right to free movement and family reunification.

She said the young generations will take it upon their shoulders to speak up for the Palestinian refugees’ plight and transmit to the world the sufferings of their parents and grandparents who were forced out of their land.

The final speaker was Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian activist from occupied Jerusalem who lives in New York. She stressed the importance of documenting authentic stories from older Palestinian generations about the Nakba of 1948.

Nerdeen said over recent years Israel has been taken aback by the widespread pro-Palestinian solidarity moves. This is the reason why the colonizing entity has outlawed many organizations and imposed embargos on several NGOs seeking to enter the occupied Palestinian territories and document Israeli human rights abuses.

She said as long as Palestinian refugees are not granted their right to return to their motherland, international solidarity campaigns will remain futile. Justice will only come true in this world of this right becomes true. “Nobody is eligible to deny the Palestinians this inalienable right”, she concluded.

This year, the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) has launched ‘Return Week II’, which aims to raise awareness about the inalienable right of return for Palestinian refugees. ‘Return Week II’ provides a platform to a plethora of activists, academics, and political commentators speaking up for Palestinians’ inalienable rights and discussing pro-Palestine outreach policy and advocacy mechanisms seeking to enable Palestinian refugees to exercise their right of return through international laws and conventions. ‘Return Week II’ is a commemoration of UN Resolution 194, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the founding of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which outlines the legality of Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homeland. This year’s event is special in form and content as it gives a great deal of attention to artistic visualizations of the Palestinian refugee plight.

 

Watch this event online here:

https://youtu.be/aNZh6DS1zlk

 

For more information about Return Week II please visit: 

https://prc.org.uk/en/event/ReturnWeek

Short Link : http://bit.ly/3GvCnYY