The delegation, which consisted of members of the Iranian Shura Council and Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghadanfar Roknabadi, visited the towns of Adeysseh, Fatima Gate, Kfar Kala and Maroun al-Ras - where 11 Palestinians had been gunned down by Israeli troops on May 15.

During the visit, a higher level of Israeli Army activity could be seen along the Blue Line.

Head of the cultural committee at the Iranian Shura Council, Gholam Ali-Haddad, led the delegation, which also included the head of the economic development committee, Mosbahi Mokaddam.

Ali-Haddad voiced Iran’s support to the Palestinian and Lebanese causes, as he raised the Palestinian flag at “Iran’s garden” in Kfar Kala.

“The purpose of our visit is to send a message to the Palestinian and Lebanese youth and the resistance that Iran stands by them,” Ali-Haddad said.

For his part, Roknabadi told reporters that Palestinians had the right to continue demanding their right to return to their country, until United Nations General Assembly Resolution 149, which confirms such a right, is implemented.

Earlier Sunday, the Lebanese Army forced a group of protesters out of Adaysseh after they had tried to approach to border fence Israel. The group, made up of both men and women, were put on a bus and transported to an area near the Litani River.

Palestinians in throughout the country’s refugee camps held a strike and burnt tires in protest of the Lebanese authorities’ decision to turn the area on Lebanon’s side of the Blue Line into a closed military zone.

The Palestinians had planned to march to the border to commemorate the Naksa, or “set-back,” wherein Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and Syria’s Golan Heights as a result of the 1967 Mideast war.

The Lebanese Army increased Sunday the number of checkpoints in Ain el-Helwi, Lebanon’s largest refugee camp, amid growing discontent by Palestinians about the cancellation of the march to the border.

The United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon and the Lebanese Army had bolstered their presence along the southern border Sunday. Israeli Army tanks could also be seen patrolling the border area.

Meanwhile, Palestininans in Ain el-Helwi refugee camp voiced their frustrations over the decision to ban the protest at Lebanon’s border with Israel.

Abu Dani, a shop owner in Ain el-Helwi, asked the Lebanese government to open the borders for Palestinians to return to their homeland and criticized the decision to turn the area into a military zone.

“We do not want to stay in Lebanon or have any civil rights [here],” Abu Dani said. “Just open the borders so we can die fighting on Palestinian land.”

An armed man guarding Fatah organization offices in the camp described the Lebanese government’s decision to prevent the march as degrading toward Palestinians.

“Isn’t it enough that 70,000 people live in a squared kilometer [of land], it is almost like a siege,” the armed man said.

Palestinian officials in Lebanon were preparing for Sunday’s march, pledging to have a bigger turn out than the May 15 demonstration, which resulted in the killing of 11 protesters by the Israeli Army when Palestinians marched to the Blue Line commemorating the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.” The Nakba refers to the establishment of the state of Israel which led to the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland.

A 10-year-old Palestinian voiced his disappointment regarding the cancellation, as he played with his friends at a school yard in Ain el-Helwi.

“I had prepared myself to go to the border, but my father asked me to wait in hopes of returning one day,” the boy said.