Clashes as Palestinians mark the Nakba

Clashes broke out today between Palestinians marking the Nakba, and Israeli security officials.

The Nakba - or catastrophe - is the annual recognition by the Palestinians of being driven out of what they claim was their land before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. As on previous occasions, violence broke in several West Bank cities and in East Jerusalem, with several people injured and at least 16 people arrested at the Damascus gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that his officers had used to water cannons and horses to stem protests, and, he said, to protest Jewish visitors to the Holy sites in Jerusalem.

Jibrin al-Bakri, the governor of Nablus, a city in West Bank, said: "Sixty-five years after the Nakba, we affirm that we remain committed to the right of return…"