CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Kifah Afifi: Palestinian Refugees Will Never Give Up Their Right of Return

Although Israel strives to erase the Palestinian refugees’ right of return by dismantling UNRWA, Palestinians will never give up their rights, vows historical Palestinian resistance fighter Kifah Afifi.

The Palestinians residing in Lebanon (222,000, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees) did not lose their connection to the land they were deprived of, and are not willing to accept losing their rights, Kifah tells CounterPunch in Beirut.

“Zionism made us orphans of our land, still Palestinian refugees will never give up,” asseverates the former fighter in the Palestinian resistance, who was an 11-year-old when she lost her brothers in the Shatila massacre and was detained from 1982-1995 in Khiam prison in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon.

Born in Shatila Camp, Kifah began fighting at 14. In October 1988, at 17, she took up arms and led a squad of five Palestinians and two Lebanese on a mission to cross the border into Israel to seize Israelis for a hostage exchange.

Captured by an Israeli army unit and a battalion of the pro-Israel South Lebanon Army militias in the border village of Kfar Kila, Kifah was detained in the Khiam prison, where she was locked in solitary confinement and tortured with........

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