Palestinian Land Day

Today is the 45th anniversary of  Palestinian Land Day, which also happens to coincides with the third anniversary of the Great March of Return in Gaza, and  is marked by Palestinians wherever they live. Land Day is held on the anniversary of March 30, 1978,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  were Killed by occupation forces, Kheir Mohammas Salim Tasin, Khadija Qaeem Shavaboch, Raja Hssein, AbuRayva, Khader Eid, Mahmoud Khalayleh, Muhsin HasanHasan, Said Taha and Raafar Ali-Zheir, as they defended their land, 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 massacres committed by Zionist armed groups in 1948.

Today's commemoration of Land Day is an emblematic reminder of the countless human rights violations that have characterised more than 72 years of Palestinian land confiscation and dispossession. Forty-five years on, Israeli land theft continues  unabated. Settlements are expanding; land confiscations for military, security, or industrial purposes are increasing; and, especially unsettling, measures to rid Jerusalem - the aspired capital of a future Palestinian state.

The Israeli policy of land theft and expropriation has never ended. The Annexation plan of the occupied Palestinian territory is being implemented with more land  being seized and more people  becoming forcibly displaced. In the last few days Israeli confiscated lands in the South, East and West of Bethlehem, and on on.06/01/2021 alone, the Israeli occupation forces uprooted more than 3400 olive trees in Deir Ballut village in the Salfit Governorate .for settlement expansion and for military purposes, a clear violation of the international Humanitarian Law.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.

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.

The day is commemorated  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, as a symbol of their resilience to daily occupation..This year, despite  the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left much of the world’s populations under lockdown and curfew. Being confined to their homes or their villages and towns is not a new experience for Palestinians which is perhaps why so many have taken it in their stride, and continue to show  show incredible strength, courage and sumud (steadfastness) in the face of great adversity. While Israeli settler colonial expansionism does not rest, neither does Palestinian perseverance and Palestinians are continuing to mark Land Day with anti-Israel protests around Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Land Day 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 is  a Palestine day, a day for its people to  proudly declare that they are one from the River to the Sea. It serves to remind the world that the Israeli denial and suppression of Palestinian resistance and their right to self-determination is a policy intended to squash the Palestinian people’s will and dominate them to expand Israel’s settler colonialism.

 The Keep Hope Alive - Olive Tree Campaign works to support the Palestinian farmers to protect their land, to restore their hope, to empower them and to strengthen their steadfastness, by providing them with olive trees and share with them actions of solidarity and support from partners and friends worldwide.

In 2018, the Day of the Land once again bore witness to the popular organizing of the people, as thousands upon thousands gathered in Gaza for the Great March of Return, and occupation foces again shot down Palestinians defending their land and upholding their rights, 47 years after the first Land Day massacre. Israel occupying forces killed 16 martyrs of the land and return, with over 200 more shot down in the marches in the months and days to come.

 In the Palestinian reality, every day is Land Day. Today and tomorrow I continue to stand side by side with my sisters and brothers in solidarity with  their struggle for peace, justice, equality and an end to the illegal occupation of their land.I would urge others who may read this to do the same.
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