Today, 30th March, is Yorn al Ard//Land Day in Palestine one of the most important days marking Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid.
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 brutally 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 who has squeezed the Palestinian population, of some 5.3 million, to live in less that 9% of Mandate Palestine.
Land Day remains poignantly relevant as Israel continues to confiscate land, expand their colonies, and 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 apartheid regime and policies that has consistently displaced Palestinians from their native lands, simultaneously destroying their ecosystems It is also 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,
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 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 Israeli forces, murdering over 90 Palestinians. amd wounding over 2.000 so far this year, with land theft, ethnic cleansing, home demolitions and settlement expansion increasing at an alarming rate,settler organisations have been further emboldened by a new Israeli government that is worrying even more right wing than its predecessors that threatens even more annexations. creating conditions that will make like for the Palestinian's more unbearable than it is now.
On this important day in the Palestinian struggle for liberation,as they renew their commitment to the struggle for freedom. justice and return, our strength must be drawn from their resistance and steadfastness/that has not ceased since 1976 against those that seek to sever the connection they have to their land.
The day of the land reminds us that the Palestinian right of return enshrined in international law is inextricably linked to the right of existence that refuses to be forgotten. The Palestinian people have suffered enough and their collective pain must not be allowed to continue.
The international community must take firm and principled actions to promote the human rights and dignity of the Palestinians.and their access and use of their land and Properties,and defend the rights of the Palestinian People and hold Israel accountable to its obligations under international humanitarian Law.
I would like to draw attention to the Keep Hope Alive – Olive Tree Campaign, that helpa 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.
The Land Day strike inspired the following two poems, the first by Tawfiq Zayyad, ,and then another strong poem by the pen of Mahmoud Darwish 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.
To our Land - Mahmoud Darwish
and it is the one near the word of god,
a ceiling of clouds
To our land,
and it is the one far from the adjectives of nouns,
the map of absence
To our land,
and it is the one tiny as a sesame seed,
a heavenly horizon ... and a hidden chasm
To our land
and it is the one poor as a grouses wings
holy books . . . and an identity wound
To our land,
and it is the one surrounded with torn hills,
the ambush of a new past
To our land, and it is a prize of war,
the freedom to die from longing and burning
and our land, in its bloodied night
is jewel that glimmers for the far upon the far
and illuminates whats outside it . . .
As for us , inside,
we suffocate more !
Translated by Fady Joudah
