Sit-in at Saida on the 77th anniversary of the Nakba. (Courtesy of Muntasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — On the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) held a mass sit-in Friday in front of the UNRWA services center in the southern city of Saida and submitted a memorandum outlining demands related to refugee rights and the agency’s role, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the South reported.
The event was attended by DFLP Central Committee member Taysir Ammar, party leaders from Lebanon and the Saida region, and representatives of various Palestinian and Lebanese national and Islamic political factions, popular committees and unions.
Khaled Abu Sweid, a member of the DFLP leadership in Lebanon, said during the sit-in that “Palestinian refugees remain a central target of Zionist aggression.”
He cited “the massacres and acts of genocide currently affecting the people of Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps, along with the ongoing suffering of millions of refugees in the diaspora.” Abu Sweid warned that “Israel is seeking to impose a second Nakba.”
Israel’s war on Gaza, which began Oct. 7, has killed at least 53,010 Palestinians and wounded 119,919, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Abu Sweid also called for an “urgent end to internal Palestinian division and the restoration of national unity,” saying unity and resistance are essential to confront what he described as the U.S.-Israeli offensive and to counter occupation and settlement expansion.
During the sit-in, DFLP leader Mahmoud Qaddoura submitted a memorandum to Dorothee Klaus, director of UNRWA affairs in Lebanon. The document reaffirmed support for UNRWA as “a living witness to the plight of Palestinian refugees until they return to their homes and properties in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194.”
The memorandum also called for adequate funding to improve social, health, and educational services and to renovate unsafe homes in refugee camps.
The demonstration concluded with the official handover of the memorandum to Klaus.