By Diana khwaelid
Nur Shams camp – Dozens of Palestinians peacefully demonstrated to demand the return to their homes in the Nur Shams camp. Palestinian and international activists joined the demonstration in solidarity.
“We want to return to our camp and our homes.” This was echoed by Palestinian demonstrators from the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, after being displaced for ten-months in a row, after the Israeli forces launched a huge military operation in the northern West Bank, mainly targeting Palestinian camps.
Residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp, who lost their homes as a result of the deliberate destruction by the machinery and bulldozers of the Israeli occupation, reject the idea of abandoning their camp in which they grew up.
Old and young women and men, after the ten month exodus, held up posters with “Right of Return” written on them in Arabic and English, stressing that this demonstration will continue to be organized weekly until the implementation of their demands to enter the camp and return to it.
The Israeli occupation, particularly the senior leadership of the Israeli government, is blocking this decision due to what they call “security concerns”.
At the demonstration, the Israeli forces set up cement blocks to stop the advancing of the demonstrators.
Palestinian children, women, and men demonstrated and held a sit-in for three hours. Hopefully the Israeli occupation forces will respond, but there is fear that the decision to exile Palestinians from the camps has been already made, that the Palestinian presence in the Palestinian camps was eliminated. The elimination of the Palestinian presence is a systematic Israeli plan. In particular, the refugee camps are the evidence of the Palestinian existence before the advent of the Israeli occupation in 1948.
