Nakba Day. The day of the Catastrophe. A day to mark the ethnic cleansing of 800000 Palestinians from their homes. A day to remind themselves and the world, that one day, they will return to their homes, that they have not forgotten their land. Today marked 63 years of dispossession, 63 years of ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Palestinians marched north from Beit Hanoun to the wall; thousands of Palestinians marched toward their homes. As we approached the wall the Israeli army barked out its hello. A tank began to fire over the crowd and into the sand dunes lining the road. The Israeli bulldozers had already thoroughly destroyed anything that was once on this land, outside of threatening the crowd there was nothing to accomplish by this shooting. It is a strange thing to be fired at with a cannon from a tank; you can almost feel the air shake when the shell explodes. The crowd did not stop, it continued forward, chanting against the occupation, chanting their love of their land. Soon the stream of wounded began. From the front of the crowd men and boys carried by their friends, by whoever was standing near them when they were shot. They came in a steady stream; you could hear the tak tak tak of the Israeli rifles echo against the calm sky. In the West Bank, the soldiers are usually stationed on a hill, first comes the tear gas, and then come the bullets, usually rubber at first, later the live ammunition. In Gaza there are no pretenses, first the tanks fire their cannons <b>...</b>
15
may
demo
Earez
crossing
