The Arab blood that was shed today by Israeli troops will not go in vain, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday.

Abbas made this remarks in a televised speech as Palestinians and Arabs demonstrated in the Palestinian territories and on Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, the term they use to refer to Israel's creation in 1948 and the subsequent uprooting of Palestinians from their hometowns and villages.

About a dozen people were killed on the Syrian and Lebanese borders when Israeli forces opened fire at the demonstrators who climbed the fence to enter Israel.

"Their blood did not go in vain," Abbas said, "Their blood was shed for the sake of the Palestinian people's freedom and rights."

Abbas called for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which would secure the Palestinian refugees' rights to return and be in accordance with the U.N. resolution.