Report: Matar shot dead trying to exercise his right to return to his hometown

A news report said that the 80-year-old man Fouad Matar, who was shot dead by Israeli troops last Friday east of Beit Hanoun near the 1948 occupied lands, was trying to exercise his right to return to his native village, Yebna, which he and his family were expelled from 62 years ago.

The wife of Matar did not take it seriously when her husband told her of his intention to go to Yebna, 60 kilometers away from his current home, and thought then it was a matter of homesickness, but the news of his death by Israeli gunfire on the border east of Beit Hanoun made her realize that her life partner was aware of what he said.

The Palestinian village of Yebna is located on a high hill south of Yaffa city and surrounded by the villages of Al-Nabi Rubin, Qubeiba, Zeronqa, Arab Suqir, Beshet, Sedud and Haffar.

Matar was in the prime of his youth when Zionist gangs in 1948 displaced the people of his village and built on its ruins the settlement of Yafen.

Thousands of Palestinians marched on Saturday in his funeral procession before burying him in Beit Lahiya.

The Palestinian people are commemorating nowadays the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe), when Zionist gangs invaded their homeland and displaced them by force.