Palestinians march to village ethnically cleansed by Israel in lead-up to 'independence day' celebrations

Thousands of Palestinians on Wednesday took part in a "return march" to the former site of the village of Lajjun, which was ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias in the lead-up to the creation of Israel in 1948.

The marchers, who hailed from the territories within Israel’s 1948 borders, chanted freedom slogans, waved Palestinian flags and carried banners bearing the names of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages.

The march coincided with Israel's celebration of its "independence day". 

"The presence of these crowds in this way says everything," Mohammed Baraka, one of the event's organisers, told The New Arab's Arabic-language sister service, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

"It says that the [Palestinian] right of return does not end with a statute of limitations, and it says that the Zionist project has failed," he added.

#مسيرة_العودة الـ26 في أراضي #اللجون المهجرة pic.twitter.com/2jcGqXYPCK

— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) April 26, 2023

Crowds at the march also chanted slogans demanding the release of Palestinians detained by Israel, including activist Walid Daqqa.

The village of Lajjun fell to Zionist militias on 30 May in 1948 - the year of the Nakba, or 'catastrophe', which saw Zionist forces expel some 700,000 Palestinians in order to establish the state of Israel.

The Israeli settlement of Megiddo was established on the site of Lajjun, with the village's mosque now serving as a carpentry shop.

Last year, Israeli authorities removed tombstones and a memorial to those killed in Lajjun in 1948.