Israeli police on horseback charged Palestinians as tens of thousands marched in protest to mark the 65th anniversary of the Jewish state’s creation.

There were violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians waving their national flag to commemorate ‘Nakba Day’ – or ‘the day of the catastrophe’.

Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to protest against their mass displacement during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

Across the West Bank, sirens wailed at noon for 65 seconds to commemorate the 65 years since the ‘nakba.’

Thousands marched in Ramallah from the grave of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to the city center. Many wore black in a sign of mourning, holding Palestinian flags and large keys symbolizing the homes they left behind.

‘The right of return will not die,’ chanted the protesters. Schools closed at midday and parents brought their children to the demonstration.

Rallies were elsewhere in the West Bank as well, and in several places demonstrators throwing rocks clashed with Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas, Israel’s military said. Near the volatile city of Hebron, a fire bomb hit at an Israeli military vehicle, causing it to overturn and injuring four soldiers.

In east Jerusalem, Israeli police used water cannon and officers on horseback to disperse an ‘illegal march,’ police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Fourteen protesters were arrested, as was a Palestinian suspected of attacking a Jewish man as he walked near the Old City, he said.

In Gaza, around a thousand people marched to the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City, where the demonstrators chanted: ‘We shall return. We will never give up or compromise over our land.’

‘We won the support of the world,’ Abbas said, adding that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are ‘condemned internationally.’