An international peace process is necessary to stop the deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters on Sunday after separately briefing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Arab MKs participated in a “Nakba Day” ceremony at Entin Square in front of the main entrance to Tel Aviv University on Sunday.
The Im Tirtzu NGO held a very loud Zionist counter-demonstration, chanting “Nakba Nonsense,” waving Israeli flags, passing out flyers, and drowning out the “Nakba” ceremony speakers.
They also brought a 4.5-meter inflatable Pinocchio doll.
“You are on the side of the terrorists that kill children!” Im Tirtzu’s CEO, Matan Peleg shouted into the speaker.
A couple of hundred Nakba protesters and a few dozen Zionist counter-protesters were on opposite sides of the square, with security barriers and a strong police presence separating them.
The Nakba protesters held a ceremony and a moment of silence for those displaced in 1948 amid constant noise from the Im Tirtzu side.
Muhammad Barakei, the leader of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee and former Hadash chairman, told
The Jerusalem Post that there needs to be “justice, to fix the suffering and the ethnic cleansing” that took place in 1948-49 War of Independence.
“Most Palestinians became refugees,” claimed Barakei.
