IPSC Nakba Commemoration - 17th Feb 2008

Howth residents and market goers show their support for UN Resolution 194

On Sunday 17th February IPSC activists and supporters held a vigil to commemorate the Palestinian village of Quisarya which was ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces on February 15th 1948. A map of historic Palestine was erected on the green at Howth Quays and members of the public were encouraged to place Palestinian flags in remembrance of the Nakba and symbolically returning the refugees to their lands.

Leaflets and wallet cards calling on Michael Woods TD (Chairman of Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs) to support the implementation of UN Resolution 194 which give Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homeland. The IPSC would like to thank all those who took the time to remember the Nakba.

The 2008 Nakba Campaign organisers would like to thank all of the Howth residents & market goers who stopped to place a flag and symbolically return the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Nakba to their homes, as required under United Nations Resolution 194, last Sunday.

We hope that discussion of the events of 1948 will lead to the enactment of international law in the region, and create a real possibility for peace.

The first person to place a flag on the map was a tourist going to the market, it transpired that her family were Palestinian and she was very pleased to see the occasion marked.

The date commemorated Qisarya, the first town to be completely expelled, on the 15th February 1948, a day when four other villages in the area were also expelled. Their mosque was converted into a restaurant. They are not allowed return.

In 1948 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, civilians were massacred & hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed, this expulsion continues today.

Placing flags

Explaining the Nakba

Placing flags, again

They will return!