Wednesday May 15th, 2002, marks the 54th anniversary of Al-Nakba (the catastrophe). The Palestinian quest for justice, freedom, and independence remains unfulfilled, the Palestinian call for protection remains unheard, and the painful reminder of yesterday's loss is only reinforced by today.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948, eight hundred thousand Palestinians were made refugees (today there are more than 5 million Palestinian refugees), five hundred and thirty one Palestinian villages were terrorized, destroyed, and their inhabitants uprooted. Today, the uprooting and the terror continue.

More than 1,550 Palestinians have been killed in the past eight months at the hands of the Israeli forces, more than 19,000 have been injured, hundreds of homes have been demolished, and thousands of trees uprooted.

On the 54th anniversary of Al-Nakba, the Palestinians reassert their call for the right to freedom, the right to independence, and the right to life itself.

The world must not remain silent towards the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. Justice must be met; Israel must acknowledge the suffering it has inflicted on the Palestinians, it must recognize the Palestinian refugees right of return, it must withdraw to the June 1967 boundaries, it must dismantle all illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, and most urgently, Israel must stop the ongoing brutality against an unarmed Palestinian civilian population. Until this is fulfilled, Al-Nakba will remain an ongoing episode in the life of the Palestinian people.