Today, 30th March, is Yorn al Ard//Land Day in Palestine and is marked by Palestinians wherever they live. Land Day is held on the anniversary of March 30, 1976,when Palestinian
villages and cities across the country witnessed mass demonstrations
against the states plans to expropriate 2,000 hectares of land in and around the Arab
villages of Araba and Sakhnin as a part of a plan to "Judaise the
Galilee".Israel's Galilee region. In coordination with the military, some 4,000
police officers were dispatched to quell the unrest. At the end of the
day, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed, and over one hundred injured by state security
forces.
The Day of the land - or Land Day marked the first mass mobilization of
Palestinians within Israel against internal colonialism and land theft.
It also signalled the failure of Israel to
subjugate Palestinians who remained in their towns and villages, after
around 700,000 of them were either expelled or forced to flee battles or
massacres committed by Zionist armed groups in 1948.It's commemoration is a reaffirmation that the Palestinians who
remained in the area on which Israel was declared in 1948, are an
inseperable part of the Palestinian people and their struggle.
This important day in Palestinian history commemorates the Palestinians
sense of belonging to a people, to a
cause and a country, to stand united against racial oppression and rules
of apartheid,and the discriminatory practices of the Israeli
government, giving continual potency to the Palestinians cause , its
quest for justice and Palestinian rights, and its resistance to
injustice,who never cease to fight for their land while holding
passionately to their history and identity. It is the right of return,
recognised in the United Nations Resolution 194, that drives Palestinians to continue with the commemoration of Land Day - regardless of their geographical location. and reveals Palestinians’ unyielding commitment to every single inch of
their native land.
The day is celebrate annually by Palestinians in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and further afield in refugee camps and among
the Palestinian diaspora worldwide, with demonstrations, marches and by
planting olive and fruit trees, in honor of Indigenous sumud (resilience).
Sumud is the concept most frequently employed to describe the daily reality experienced by Palestinians in the occupied territories and those caught up in the ongoing diaspora, translates as steadfastness and refers to a form of everyday resistance, and describes a stubborn insistence on continuing with life despite all obstacles.
Land Day is typically
met with violent Israeli repression, yet this movement gained a renewed surge in 2018 when thousands of
Palestinians — families, people of all ages, and genders — commemorated
Land Day by peacefully walking towards the border areas along the Gaza
Strip. They dubbed this the Great March of Return and originally
intended to highlight the sacrifices of those who resisted and continue
to resist land acquisition; it was also a protest against Israel’s
10-year long siege of Gaza.
It was land that motived them to start this largely non-violent protest
which was met with Israeli fire and snipers. Israel claimed the
lives of hundreds of Palestinians at the Great March of Return, and
thousands more lives before and since then. But it is beyond doubt, that
Israel has failed to erase the love in the hearts of all Palestinians
for their land.
Since the Great March of Return, Palestinians in Gaza have
held weekly marches towards a security fence put up by Israel. They
mainly attempt to break the siege around their territory and demand
their land back as well.
On March 29, 2002, at the height of the Second Intifada, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, a devastating military assault that killed nearly 500 Palestinians, wounded over 1400, and left over 17,000 Palestinians homeless. Though these events all happened years apart, they serve as a great representation of the realities of ongoing Israeli settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing, occupation, and apartheid today.
Today many of the Land Day protests against the theft of their lands focus on the Negev
region, since much of the land that has been marked for appropriation
in the Galilee has already been confiscated. The Palestinian Bedouin
citizens of Israel also now face the appropriation of 800,000 dunams of
the Negev by the Israeli state.The housing situation for the Bedouin remains dire. Settlements that
house 160,000 people are deemed "illegal" by Israel, and risk
demolition. The issue of land allocation and housing for Palestinian citizens of Israel has now reached crisis point.
Land seizures remain an essential part of Israeli
policy that can be seen regularly applied in area ‘C’ within the West
Bank, that is under the full Israeli control. As a result of such
measures, and the continued attacks on these lands, and inaccessibility
to basic services provided to the people living there, most of the
Palestinians have been forced to leave the area that is now considered
de facto annexed to the occupying state of Israel.
Seizing land
over the last 55 years by the Israeli military occupation has squeezed
the Palestinian population, of some 5.3 million, to live in less that 9%
of Mandate Palestine. Land seizures also brought to an end the
two-state solution that was always supported by the world community as
the only possible solution to the Palestinian Question.
Land Day
therefore continues to be poignantly relevant as Israel continues to
confiscate land, expand their
colonies, and continue to build their illegal settlements in flagrant
violation of all international conventions, particularly the Fourth
Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law.Land day has come to symbolise the struggle of the Palestinian people for
their legitimate rights to their own land, homes and property; indeed,
their legitimate right to their homeland and for its people to proudly declare that they are
one from
the River to the Sea.
As we commemorate the Palestinian Land Day, let us continue to strongly
condemn Israel’s policies and practices of seizing the Palestinian land. It is worth noting that while some 10 million Palestinians live in refugee camps struggling
and demanding to return to their land since they were displaced starting
in 1948 with the Nakba, the State of Israel opens its doors to
Ukrainian refugees. A quarter of a million are expected to arrive from
Ukraine to Palestinian land, not because of solidarity, but as a way to
deepen colonization and change the ethnic composition in the region.
Whilst not forgetting the people of Ukraine's terrifying ordeal at the present time, it's important that we do not forget the Palestinian
people either .The daily attack on the people of Palestine just like the people of Ukraine is deeply saddening which sees occupation practices, depriving people of their
basic human rights as articulated under international Law.
Today, the Israeli occupation continues its dispossession of lands, most recently with the announcement of the forced expulsion of 38 Palestinian families from the occupied East Jerusalem village of Al-Walaja. 300 Palestinian residents of Al-Walaja await the Israeli court’s ruling on the demolition of their homes.
According to the United Nations, al-Walaja has lost more than 85 percent of its lands since 1948, while 90 percent of the residents of the village and their descendants were forced out, many of them ending up in nearby refugee camps. International outrage can stop these demolitions. Harnessing today’s mass movement, it is crucial that we work to defend Palestinians’ rights to remain in and return to their homes.
Israel’s apartheid regime has consistently displaced Palestinians from their native lands, simultaneously destroying their ecosystems. This Land Day, Palestinians across the board are resisting ethnic cleansing from al-Walaja, Jerusalem, to Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, to Al-Naqab desert in what is known as Israel today, to the Jordan Valley, to Gaza, and beyond. This Land Day, Palestinians and non-Palestinians across the world resist settler colonialism and call for long-overdue sanctions on apartheid Israel.
On Palestinian Land Day we can express our solidarity through our deep commitment to continue working towards ending the
prevailing violations and work towards bringing about a just peace. Against a backdrop of furtehr desctruction of land by Israel we must promote the Palestinian right to access and use their land and Properties. Write
to your MPs on the need to defend the rights of the Palestinian People
and hold Israel accountable to its obligations under international
humanitarian Law. I would also urge you to support, promote and sponsor the Keep Hope Alive – Olive Tree Campaign, to help Palestinian farmers, access, maintain and save their land. Olive trees and harvests have an exceptionally important place in Palestinian culture, especially in villages where farming is the main source of
income for Palestinian families. Palestinians and especially farmers
have always looked at olive trees as a national symbol that should be
kept and protected as it speaks of the thousands of years of their
history in Palestine. This special importance has been expressed in the
Palestinian culture, through oral history, songs, and poetry.
As Palestinians renew their commitment to the struggle for freedom , justice and return, strength must be drawn from the resistance that has not ceased since1976. You can join in celebrating Palestinian cultural resistance through the arts, food and the myriad ways Palestinians resist attempts to sever the connection they have to their land rights here: :https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/land-day-cook-along/
The Land Day strike inspired the following powerful poem by Tawfiq Zayyad, Palestinian poet, writer, scholar and politician, that continues to resonate across the Palestinian generations.
Here we will stay - Tawfiq Zayyad ( 7/5/ 29 - 5/7/ 94)
In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,
we shall remain
like a wall upon your chest,
and in your throat
like a shrad of glass,
a cactus thron,
and in your eyes
a sandstorm.
We shall remain
a wall upon your chest,
clean dishes in your restaurants,
serve drinks in your bars,
sweep the floors of your kitchens
to snatch a bite for our children
from your blue fangs.
Here we shall stay,
sing our songs,
take to the angry streets,
fill prisons with dignity.
In Lidda, in Ramla, in the galilee,
we shall remain,
guard the shade of the fig
and olive trees,
ferment rebellion in our children
as yeast in the dough.
Link to poem by Mahmoud Darwish on the same theme :-
https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/to-our-land-mahmoud-darwish-13309.html
'if the olive trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.'
- Mahmoud Darwish
Palestinian planting olive Trees on Land Day
