al-Ghabisiyya - الغابسية: Reuters: Displaced Israeli Arabs demand return to villages

AL-GHABSIEH, Israel, March 28 (Reuters) - Around 1,200 Israeli Arabs displaced during the 1948 Middle East war demonstrated near a deserted village on Saturday demanding the right to return to their villages. Demonstrators near al-Ghabsieh village carried banners naming 416 Arab villages whose 300,000 Palestinian residents were displaced during fighting between Arabs and Jews in 1948. Witnesses said protesters chanted slogans emphasising their Palestinian identity over their status as Israeli citizens. Israeli police and soldiers prevented scores of cars from reaching al-Ghabsieh. Israeli-Arab parliamentarians said the demonstration was part of a series of activities by more than 850,000 Israeli Arabs to commemorate Land Day -- March 30, the day in 1976 when Israeli troops fired on Arabs protesting against land confiscations, killing six. The protest was also part of activities marking the 50th anniversary of what Arabs and Palestinians call the "Great Catastrophe" -- the defeat of the Arabs in the 1948 war which created the Palestinian refugee problem and led to the establishment of the state of Israel. Israel celebrates the same events as part of its 50th anniversary jubilee this year. Tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced from their villages and towns during the 1948 war, now live in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The only visible remnant of Arab life in al-Ghabsieh was a mosque, surrounded by barbed wire placed by Israelis after 1948 to prevent Arabs from returning to the village for prayers. The rest of the village was deserted and wrecked by the war. A young man who tried to raise the Palestinian flag on the mosque was stopped by police. "In April 1948 when the Jewish militias attacked us, one of the village citizens raised the white flag but they killed him along with nine others. Residents were terrified by their terrorism and fled the village," said Mohammad Aslan, 95, who now lives in another village 500 metres (yards) away. "We returned to the village nine months later but they drove us out. I still dream of returning," he told Reuters. Israeli Arabs, a minority in Israel, have historically complained of discrimination at the political, social and economic levels. They demand equality with Jews and improved services.