RAMALLAH - Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa vowed on Wednesday that the Palestinian people would foil ongoing attempts aimed at expelling them from their land,
Mustafa said that thanks to their awareness and attachment to their homeland, the Palestinian people would strike down all attempts aimed at their expulsion, including the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the blockaded Gaza Strip after eight months of systematic destruction and genocidal offensive.
This offensive resulted in the killing of 35,173 Palestinians and injuring 79,061 others, the Palestine News Agency (WAFA) reported.
He stressed that escalating Israeli army and colonist attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, would not force them to surrender. The Palestinian people, along with their leadership, would withstand all Israeli threats as they had for previous decades.
Mustafa hailed the commemoration of Nakba Day and the rising global support for the Palestinian cause as indications that Palestinian national rights are inalienable and imprescriptible.
He said these commemorations expose the Israeli occupation and settler-colonialism's narrative and advance the Palestinian people towards the establishment of their independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Observed by Palestinians each year on May 15, Nakba Day commemorates the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, when 800,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the assault by Zionist military forces that established Israel.
The 76th anniversary of the Nakba is marked as Israel continues its war against the Gaza Strip since Oct 7.
At least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organisations report that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forcible displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip.
The vast majority of the displaced have been forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt, creating Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba. - BERNAMA-WAFA