TYRE, May 14: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon commemorated on Wednesday the 1948 “catastrophe” that led to their forced exile and insisted on their right of return to former homes in present-day Israel.

In Tyre, 80kms south of Beirut, some 2,000 Palestinians gathered in the town centre near the port to mark the “Naqba” (catastrophe) to refer to the creation of the state of Israel.

A delegation handed a letter to a UN representative addressed to Secretary General Kofi Annan, telling him they would not renounce their right of return to their homes.

“There will be no stability or peace in the region if the Jewish state refuses to implement Resolution 194,” passed by the UN Assembly in 1949, it read.—AFP