Kim Bullimore
Palestinian women in the Salfit district of the Israeli-occupied West Bank were joined by international and Israeli peace activists to marked the 29th annual Palestinian Land Day on March 30.
Palestinian Land Day, known as Yom al Ard in Arabic, commemorates the March 30, 1976, killing of six Palestinians in the Galilee by Israeli occupation troops during peaceful protests over Israel's confiscation of Palestinian lands.
Since 1967, Israel has used a combination of military force and a complex system of administrative methods to confiscate land from Palestinians and demolish their homes. This has included the manipulation of laws inherited from the Ottoman Empire, the seizure of land for "military needs", declaring Palestinian-owned land "abandoned assets" and the expropriation of Palestinian land for "public needs".
In addition to confiscating land, the Israeli state has also, according to the Israeli Committee Against the Demolition of Houses, demolished 12,000 houses leaving 70,000 Palestinians homeless.
The stolen land on which Palestinian houses and crops once stood is used to benefit and expand the Israeli state and its illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), with Palestinians being forbidden access to their former lands.
The march in Salfit district was organised by the Palestinian grassroots organisation Women for Life and was just one of hundreds of activities and protests throughout the OPT to highlight the continuing confiscation of Palestinian land by the Israeli occupiers and the struggle against the occupation.
Women for Life highlighted the Zionists' confiscation of Palestinian land by marching to Wadi Qana, a valley once full of natural springs and fertile land hosting Palestinian citrus crops. The valley — which is surrounded by the illegal Israeli settlements of Imanuel, Yakir, Nevi Menachem, Karnei Shomron, Nov Qana, and Givot Shomron — has had most of its water wells either stolen or polluted by these illegal paramilitary outposts. The loss of water wells and the pollution of the remaining natural springs in 1986 forced the 350 Palestinian residents of Wadi Qana to leave the valley and move to the nearby village of Deir Istya.
In Bethlehem, hundreds of Palestinians and international peace activists marched to highlight impact of the illegal apartheid wall being constructed by Israel. Despite attempts by the Israeli military to stop the demonstration, peace activists were able to reach Rachel's Tomb and Palestinian homes which had either been earmarked by the Israeli state for demolition or would be surrounded by the wall once constructed.
In Kufur Kanna, in the Galilee, where the massacre of the six Palestinians took place in 1976, hundreds of residents marched toward the memorial site. Hassan Taha, the brother of Muhsen Taha, one of those killed in 1976, told Palestinian media that "Land Day is a day where we affirm our commitment to our land, and affirm our belonging to the Palestinian people".
From Green Left Weekly, April 6, 2005.
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