DHAIRA, SOUTH LEBANON, 16 May 2008 (IRIN) - Several hundred Palestinian refugees marched to the Lebanon-Israeli border on 14 May exchanging loud-hailer greetings and storming part of the fence in dramatic scenes commemorating 60 years since they - or in most cases their forbears - were driven into exile during the creation of Israel.

"People call this the memorial of 'naqba'," said Sheikh Saleem Hajab, spiritual leader of Palestinian Islamist faction Ansar Allah, using the Arabic word for the "catastrophe" which Palestinians say befell them when the UN partitioned Palestine in 1948.

"But we call it the memorial or return. God has given us a divine promise. We will return to our homeland."

Anyone among the many tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced in 1948 - no-one knows for certain what the Palestinian population of the region http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm) was at the time - would have to be at least 60 and probably over 70 to have any clear memories of the event, but today it is embedded in the collective psyche of the Palestinian people, and has ramifications for regional and world peace and stability.

For most Palestinians, the right to return of about seven million refugees who trace their origins to the exodus from Palestine that followed the creation of Israel in 1948, is an absolute. For Israeli officials - whose historians dispute the figure of seven million as well as the reason for the mass exodus - the issue is existential: The sheer number of refugees who claim a right to return are a demographic danger to the world's only Jewish state.

Mark Regev, spokesman of the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, told IRIN: "Palestinian and Arab leaders did not accept the two-states idea [back then], and wanted all or nothing. Is it logical to blame only Israel?" But he added:

"We believe in a two-state solution, living side by side in peace, one Jewish homeland and one Palestinian. And just as the Jewish state solved the Jewish refugee issue, so too, their state will be the homeland of all Palestinians and solve the Palestinian refugee issue."

"Deep negotiations"

In a speech launching US-brokered peace talks in the US city of Annapolis last November, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to begin "deep negotiations" with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on final status issues, including the question of refugees "in all its political, humanitarian, individual and common aspects, consistent with Resolution 194".

UN General Assembly Resolution 194 and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts the refugees' unconditional right of return to live at peace in their old homes or to receive compensation for the loss of their homes.

The issue of the refugees' fate has largely been ignored in previous rounds of Middle East diplomacy, which has focused on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territories occupied after the 1967 Six Day War.

But the question was very much in the minds of the dozen bus loads of Palestinians who gathered at the Lebanese border village of Dhaira, just a kilometre away from Israeli soldiers standing guard at the border fence.

"Our homes have been turned into settlements and we blame the whole international community that 60 years after our land was occupied there is still no solution," said Sultan Abu Aynen, a general in the secular Fatah faction of President Abbas.

"Our land will only be won back by armed resistance and by the will of the people," he said.

"Ben Gurion [a key Zionist and founder of Israel] said the living will die and the new generations forget," shouted Sheikh Abdel Salam Nasseri through a loud-hailer, saying he had travelled up to the border from Damoun.

"Here we are today and still living and still hoping to see you return to the homeland," he said, addressing the crowds of emotional men, women and children, who sang the Palestinian national anthem through loud-hailers and waved huge blue flags reading: No rights but return home: UN Resolution 194.

Army prevents chaos

A group of young Palestinians broke through a portion of the border fence before the Lebanese army intervened to prevent further chaos. Several of the young men fell unconscious from exhaustion and emotion as they screamed at soldiers to let them see their cousins and homeland across the divide.

The march had meant to include up to 15,000 Palestinians from across Lebanon with its 12 Palestinian refugee camps, organisers said, but the current violent crisis between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Western-backed government meant only Palestinians from south Lebanon could attend.

Several faction leaders said the Palestinians would not be drawn into Lebanon's turmoil. Arab mediators arrived in Beirut today.

"All the factions agree we will not interfere in Lebanese affairs," said Abu Abed Mashghour, a political chief of Hamas in Lebanon. "We know if we entered the fight the only one to gain would be Israel. But we are with the resistance," he said, referring to Hezbollah, "because they are helping us to liberate our homeland."

hm/shg/cb

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.IRINnews.org

IRIN news

Interested in humanitarian issues? Take a quick survey here.