'194' marks 1948
Photo: AFP
World's largest head-dress marks Nakba
Lebanese activists lay out 6,552-meter chain of scarves to mark Palestinian day of mourning
Lebanese and Palestinian activists on Saturday marked the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation by setting a record for the world's largest keffiyeh, or Arab head-dress.
The 6,552-meter chain of scarves was laid out on the grounds of the Sport City Stadium in Beirut to mark what Arabs call the Nakba, or a day of mourning for Israel's establishment in 1948.
Laying out the scarves (Photo: Reuters)
The feat, overseen by a Guinness World Records official, breaks a previous entry of a 2,932-meter scarf set in Spain in August 2009.
More than 100 volunteers placed the giant scarf to form the number 194, signifying the 1948 United Nations Resolution that grants Palestinians the right to return to their homes in Israeli-occupied land.
"A group of independent Palestinian and foreign activists got together to reach that record," said Jamal Kurdi, a member of the Campaign 194 group that organised the record-breaking event.
"On the anniversary of the Naqba we want to affirm that Resolution 194... calling for the return of Palestinians to their land must be implemented," he said.
A sign next to the giant keffiyeh, which was made with more than 6,500 scarves stitched together, read: "194. We will return."
Some 4,000 people marched in Gaza City on Saturday to mark the Naqba, in response to a joint appeal by Hamas and Fatah. In the West Bank, sirens wailed as residents marked a minute's silence.
More than 760,000 Palestinians, estimated today to number 4.7 million with their descendants, were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict that followed Israel's creation 62 years ago.
May has been a month of Guinness records for Lebanon, which has been locked in a food fight with Israel over the origin of some of the Middle East's most popular dishes.
Last weekend, chefs in Lebanon fired a 10-ton hummus broadside, breaking a previous Israeli record, followed by another entry for more than a half-ton of falafels.
