Palestinian Refugees - 1967

Palestinian Refugees - 1967

In 1967 war, Israel launched air strikes against Palestinian cities and towns in Gaza strip and the West Bank, the air raids pushed thousands of Palestinians to flee their villages and towns to seek shelter out of the range of Israeli artillery bombardment. The war resulted in the displacement of more Palestinians. 350,000 people were forced out by terror, expelled or left from fear. More camps were constructed to absorb this large number of refugees

Occupation and the refugee issue in the United Nations

The Security Council and the General Assembly called on Israel on 14th June 1967 and 14th July 1967 to facilitate the return of these refugees. Israel pretended to comply. The Palestinians, having waited for 20 years in their miserable refugee camps hoping to move world conscience and trusting in the U.N. to allow them to return to their homes and restore their legitimate rights in their homeland, found it all in vain. The U.N. passed resolutions but did not enforce them, when they conflicted with the wishes of Israel and her guardian the U.S. world public opinion was deaf to the Palestinian cries while it was all ears to Zionist propaganda and demands to import 3,000,000 Russian Jews. Israel argued that the return of the Palestinian refugees will create more security problems for Israel. The Israeli attitude also applied to all Palestinians who left the country to seek jobs in the Gulf states, USA or Europe.

The Palestinians, finding all their country under Israeli occupation and its entire people either expelled or under alien rule, lost faith in the world community and came to realise that, even in this era of so-called civilization, International Law and U.N. Charter, might is right and what is lost by force can be regained only by force. They intensified, therefore, their resistance by guerrilla attacks against Israeli military personnel and objectives. The Israelis retaliated by ruthless bombardment using Phantom jets and napalm against the defenseless men, women and children in their refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The Palestinian resistance was vilified by Zionist propaganda and their captured members were savagely tortured in Israeli hands