On Friday, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif denounced the international community for ignoring the rights of the Palestinian people in its land occupied for 72 years.

This came in a statement marking the 72nd anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, which falls on May 15 each year.

Al-Azhar said, "On May 15th, the 72nd anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba falls, as the Zionist occupation declared the establishment of its alleged state on the lands of Palestine."

He added that Israel occupied more than three quarters of the area of ​​historic Palestine, and emigrated about 85% of the Palestinians to neighboring countries and some foreign countries.

"This day represents a stain on the forehead of the international community, which remains unaware or ignorant of the rights of the Palestinian people in their land occupied 72 years ago," the statement added.

He continued, "The whole world bears full responsibility for ending this brutal Zionist occupation on the blessed land of Palestine, restoring rights to their owners, and prosecuting the usurping occupier for his crimes against humanity."

And Al-Azhar stressed that "Jerusalem will remain Arab, and its cause will remain in the hearts of Arabs and Muslims, and every occupation and usurpation will inevitably end to its demise, no matter how long and agony will grow."

He pointed out that the Zionist occupation violated the rights of the Palestinians and their lands unjustly and by force of arms, and violated the rights of prisoners in prisons, as he carried out ethnic cleansing operations against the Palestinians and expanded the exploitation of settlements.

Al-Azhar warned against using Israel to spread the Corona epidemic to annex areas and parts of the West Bank, which is a blatant violation of the territories of the occupied Palestinian state.

He stressed that these steps come within the framework of the policy of imposing the fait accompli, and will not change the reality of the Arabization of the land.

Palestinians call the "catastrophe" the process of displacement from their lands by "armed Zionist gangs" in 1948, and they revive it on May 15 each year.

In that year, nearly 800,000 out of 1.4 million Palestinians were displaced from their villages and cities to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab countries.

Thousands more were displaced, but they remained within the territory that was subsequently under Israeli control.

According to the records of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the number of Palestinian refugees in 2019 reached 5.6 million.