Mohammed Kardash never forgot how the
1967 six-day war changed his life, but when the elderly Palestinian
refugee was shown long buried pictures of his ordeal in the aftermath of
war, the impact was devastating.
"It brings back all the memories," Kardash, 73, told
Britain
's The Independent on Tuesday, June 5, which marks the 40th anniversary of
the war.
In the timeworn pictures captured by a photographer from the UN refugee
agency UNRWA in the days following the war, Kardash saw himself and his
family scrambling to pack up, fleeing their old refugee camp of Jabalya in
Gaza
.
Along with faces of neighbors and friends that he can't remember, he saw
his son Aref, who was only six then, and his wife joining thousands of
other helpless Palestinians on the truck heading to
Jordan
.
At that time, little did the metal construction worker know that the war
had created a reality of an Israeli occupation over his land that would
last for decades.
Weeks of regional belligerency and international brinkmanship saw
Israel
launch the war on June 5, 1967, and quickly faced off
Egypt
,
Jordan
and
Syria
.
Six days later, the war ended with
Israel
the clear winner leaving the Palestinians and Arabs in shock and the
regional geopolitical map cardinally changed.
Israel
was able to capture the West Bank and
Jerusalem
from the Jordanians, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from
Egypt
, and the Golan Heights from
Syria
.
More than 350,000 Palestinians fled their homes in the West Bank and
Gaza
as a result.
In Arabic, the war is known as al-Naksah [Setback] and is usually describe
as the second Nakba, the establishment of
Israel
on the rubble of
Palestine
in 1948.
Worsening Ordeal
Like many Palestinians and Arabs at the time, Kardash was misled into
believing that Arab coalition forces were close to victory by listening to
the Egyptian radio.
He remembers visiting his brother, like him was a refugee from the Bureij
camp in central
Gaza
, when the Israeli armored vehicles arrived, flying Iraqi flags.
"I remember an Egyptian soldier firing his gun in the air in
excitement because he thought reinforcements had arrived," Kardash
recalled.
"But then the soldiers used their megaphones and told everyone to
hand in their weapons and they would not be harmed. And then we knew they
were Israelis."
As years goes by, the six-day war still deeply scars the region and
particularly millions of Palestinians who remain at the center of a
worsening ordeal, whether under the Israeli occupation or in diaspora.
Marking the war anniversary, Amnesty International issued a blistering
critique of
Israel
accusing it of plunging the Palestinians in poverty and despair as well as
violating international laws through its land-grabbing, blockades and
separation wall.
A recent World Bank report said Israeli restrictions were dividing the
occupied
West Bank
into economically isolated enclaves, preventing the already sluggish
economy from growing and denying Palestinians access to half of their
lands.
Protests
Palestinians and peace activists rallied on Tuesday against four decades
of Israeli occupation on the 1967 war anniversary.
In Ramallah, the political capital of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian
demonstrators waved flags and carried maps of
Palestine
before the state of
Israel
was created in 1948.
In
Nablus
, further north, Palestinians shouted slogans against the occupation and
took part in a march towards the Israeli checkpoint at Hawara, one of the
most potent local symbols of occupation.
Peace activists protested in the West Bank city of
Al-Khalil
(
Hebron
) against continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan, the West
Bank and
Jerusalem
.
"End, end the occupation!" shouted some 250 activists
Israel
's Peace Now movement.
Later, simultaneous rallies are to be held in Tel Aviv and the Anata
neighborhood of occupied
Jerusalem
.
In Tel Aviv, organizers will erect a duplicate of a checkpoint to bring
home to Israelis the "reality" of the occupied
West Bank
, which is dotted by more than 500 such checkpoints that impede freedom of
movement and feed resentment.
Israeli police banned a Palestinian conference due to take place in
Jerusalem
.
Other anti-occupation protests will take place in world capitals such as
Brussels
,
Berlin
,
Canberra
,
Paris
,
Rio de Janeiro
,
Rome
and
Washington
.
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