#Arab states say #Palestinians must stay on their #land
AMMAN/BEIRUT (MNP) – Calls for a humanitarian corridor or an escape route for Palestinians from Gaza as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has escalated have drawn a blunt reaction from Arab neighbours.
Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land.
It reflects deep-rooted Arab fears that Israel’s latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from land where Palestinians want to build a future state.
“This is the cause of all causes, the cause of all Arabs,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday. “It is important that the (Palestinian) people remain steadfast and present on their land.”
For Palestinians, the idea of leaving or being forced out of land where they want to forge a state carries echoes of the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe”, when many Palestinians fled their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Some 700,000 Palestinians, half the Arab population of what was British-ruled Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes, many spilling into neighbouring Arab states where they or many of their descendants remain. Many still live in refugee camps.
Israel contests the assertion it drove Palestinians out, pointing out it was attacked by five Arab states the day after its creation.
