An audience of approximately 3,000 -many more than expected - attended a refugee festival organized under the slogan Right of Return by the al-Amal Sports Club in the compound of the UNRWA's boys' school in Deheishe refugee camp from 1 - 3 October. The three-day event thus expressed the vitality of  
the Palestinian refugee community and the broad public support for its major demand, i.e. the right of return. 

The event was opened by the children of Deheishe Camp represented by the IBDA Folklore Dancing Troupe. IBDA performed, for the first time in their home-camp, The Tent, the dance theater telling the story of the Palestinian exile with which the troupe had started its career three years ago. The second day featured  the BALADI youth dancing troupe from Beit Jala and the  
HAKAYA youth troupe  from Bethlehem. The performance, on the third day, of the Palestinian Wedding by the renowned Popular Arts Troupe of Ramallah attracted audience not only from the Bethlehem district but from all areas of Palestine. 
 Sheikh Jamal M'addeh from the Druze Initiative Committee in the Galilee called upon the audience to remember that Palestinian rights will not be granted by anyone, neither by foreign governments nor by Israel, but must be taken by the Palestinian people in struggle. The poet Ali al-Nasib, a resident of Ikrit, recounted the history of the eviction of  the two Galilee villages of Ikrit and Qufr Bir'im and the residents' efforts for pressuring for the implementation of a 1951 Israeli High Court decision which had ruled in favor of their right to return to their land.